HARBOUR PEARLS
part 1 of NOUVELLE BURLESQUE BRUTAL
When the burlesque performer HARBOUR PEARLS smilingly calls up the traditional gestures of an erotic tease, in reference to a 1940s Egyptian film in which the singer and dancer Naima Akef embodies both the belly dancer and the flirtatious captain, her smile is no longer that of an available object. On the contrary, the knowing grin, directly addressed to the camera, together with the complicit winking between the stripper and the observing lady (both played by Daschner), creates a distance from the glamorous and stylish, almost sterile staging of events. At the same time it comments on the fantasm as well as the liberating laugh- ter of the lesbian chorus at the end.
(Sonja Eismann)
Harbour Pearls quotes a scene from a 1940s Egyptian film, in which a belly dancer and a sailor, both of whom are played by the legendary dancer and actress Naima Akef, play a mulitilevelled and ambiguous game. In Harbour Pearls, two women are also on the flirt: Harbourgirl and Glamourgirl meet in a harbour bar, and the game is on. The deciding element in this fuilm is the lesbian-queer choir: they create the burlesque setting, and moreover set up an element of distance from what could be a narcisstic encounter.
(Catrin Seefranz)
HAFENPERLEN
2008
Austria
12 min