Film Review Two: "The Slut"

The Slut: A Filthy Bhore

Director: Hagar Ben-Asher

Lead Actors: Hagar Ben-Asher, Ishai Golan, IchoAvital

Distributor: Films Distribution

Running Time: 87 minutes

            Imagine a film that moves at the pace of a snail. Now, imagine one that is gratuitous and has no clear purpose.The Slut by Hagar Ben-Asher is this film and so much less.

A poorly executed filmnot only because of Ben-Asher’s direction, but because of her screenplay—as well as her acting—The Slut follows Tamar (Hagar Ben-Asher) who works at a chicken farm throughout her several sexual exploits. The film is slow, and tries desperately to be artistic when it has no substance behind it. Artistry may never be confused with unnecessary sex scenes and a lacking story.

The film begins with the camera tracking over a barren rural landscape of dirt hills anddung heaps, stopping on the massive legs of a horse. The horse starts to run and is suddenly hit by a car, foreshadowing the direction the film goes on to take: something rather ordinary ending in disaster. It is in this same bleak landscape where we are introduced to Tamar, with a man, and from the onset it is shown what she does best. She pleasures the village’s men time and time again, to the point where they come to expect it from her. She pays the man who fixes her bicycle with sexual favors, and does so for every man she seems to come in contact with. These exploits compose the majority of the film, and they are just as uninteresting and uncomfortable as they are pointless.

Painfully blatant and obvious, Tamar is the film’s title.

These males that she services are not her only company, however: she also has two daughters. Instead of adding depth to her character, the young girls demonstrate just how vapid she is. Tamar casts them to the wayside, letting them raise themselves for the most part—except when Shai (Ishai Golan) comes into the picture. A presumedflame from the past, Shai the veterinarian returns to the village to deal with his mother’s passing and the two seem to fall in love. A common progression of story in many films—the rekindling of old romance blossoming into a lasting relationship—The Slut takes this common idea in a ridiculous, disturbing direction that does anything other than offer an interesting take on the idea.

Despite the film’s negative points, there could be a glimmer of hope in this dung heap of a movie. Perhaps attempting to posit a feminist argument, the film does seem to demonstrate elements of female sexual freedom and independence, Ben-Asher being a female director possibly supporting this claim. Tamar is a working single mother, and she does exercise her right to reproductive choices and controlling her own body. She looks out for her own interests, but maybe too much so.

Even the female audience member cannot possibly empathize with or feel for Tamar’s character. She is selfish and ungrateful, especially for the role Shai assumes in her family. The positive representations of female power are thrown out the window when she not only chooses to sleep with the village’s men over Shai, the almost father of her unborn child, but when she thrusts her daughters upon him—the unsuspecting babysitter.

Tamar is not empowered; she is pathetic and destructive.

The feminist façade is ruined not only by Tamar’s actions, but also by the sickening ending that comes out of left field. We are left stunned after a slow hour and a half and walk away totally disturbed beyond belief. We are bored into submission and then slapped in the face with the film’s conclusion, as if Ben-Asher intended to assault her unsuspecting audiences. The film is so void of meaning that the twist, nausea-inducing ending is unwarranted and only adds to its mediocrity.

While Tamar’s character evokes no emotional attachment, Golan’s performance does help create some amount of complexity in the film. The viewer feels for his struggle because, from what is shown of him, he is kind and patient with Tamar’s family. Tamar betrays him, and it is the closest one comes to an emotional reaction to the film. However, this connection to his character is also ruined by the storyline demanded of Ben-Asher’s script; any amount of merit Golan adds to the film is discredited overall.

The production value, like the other elements of the film, is also lackluster. While the repeated slow tracking used in almost every scene is at first intriguing, leaving one waiting for a payoff or for revelation(as well as a possible mark of authorship), it is erased by the horrible storyline: nothing is ever revealed. For example, in one moment Shai leaves the frame to reveal his empty front yard, the camera tracking slowly in on nothing—pointless, and this occurs in almost every scene. The camera captures the drab scenery that mirrors the miserable experience the characters, as well as the audience, have during the course of the film. There is little dialogue, and no striking shots or imagery.

Not the most pleasant of titles, perhaps I should not have been surprised when it left me more than displeased. The film may have even lived up to its title, whoring itself out to audiences by costingthem money, time and their appetite. Upon leaving the theater I was floored by a grab bag of negative emotions that were not worth the cost.

The Slut is a filthy bore.