The Dress

Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam (a cult favorite in Europe) has crafted a provocative twist on an old conceit: the way human beings can be connected by the inanimate objects that pass through their lives. This unsettling meta-odyssey begins in an anonymous cotton field, whence the material for the title garment comes. The dress's manufacture, sale, and series of owners weave an engaging plot wherein the synchronicity that damns and blesses mundane existence becomes a character in its own right. We go from a crotchety textile manufacturer to a perverse, psychotic fashion designer with a pig fetish and on to a middle-aged matron, its first owner. Blown off the lady's clothesline, the dress lands in the lap of Johanna, a pretty artist's mistress, who is stalked by a recalcitrant rapist who fancies himself a great lover. Johanna donates it to charity, a teenager buys it, the rapist recognizes the dress and stalks her. And on and on. Warmerdam avoids pat sentimentality in favor of serendipity, for better or worse. Metaphor be damned: in the end, the dress is simply an object that underscores the tenuous and unacknowledged commonality of us all.

-- Peg Aloi