Salmonberries regards a relationship that develops between an Inuit eskimo (K. D. Lang, in an impressive acting debut despite that she's no eskimo) & a German expatriot librarian (Rosel Zech) in the godforsaken middle of Nowhere, Alaska.
The film does have its moments, but they're only moments: KD howling in the satellite dish with sled dogs replying; KD naked in the library looking like a ghostly knight instead of a vulnerable sex object; & that gorgeous bedroom full of home-canned salmonberries glowing like inflourescent menstrual blood.
It also has a few good one-liners, but never two sentences in a row. As the director has English as his second language, he may well have never realized how badly written this thing is sentence for sentence.
The script needed a great deal of work, so that the bulk of the film comes off mediocre with some ultra-crappy sequences such as the librarian over-acting as she gives a didactic "background" speech & practically throws herself from one end of the screen to the other "emoting" absurdly; or KD hallucinating sans hallucinogens a series of moronic comic events in the bingo parlor; & several other emotionally unconvincing acting-outs of the badly written script.
After the director's incredibly cool Bagdad Cafe, one expects a brilliant film, & just doesn't get it. And by the fourth time KD's pretty-good song recurs on the soundtrack (& three more times in the special features) one hopes never to hear the montonous thing ever again.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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