The movie is a visual paradise of high-octane psychedelia. You will be tripping for hours afterward. Mandico is a visionary who broke out of the cage. He delivers untamed imagery that is on the same level as the best of Lynch, Jodorowsky, and Syberberg. To classify this as merely a barbarian picture would be like describing Apocalypse Now as a movie about boat safety. It is an unholy union of high and low culture. It is the fulfillment of a cinema alchemist’s dream of high art, with any trace of boredom having been power washed away. It is a surreal masterpiece and an instant cult movie classic for the ages. On a scale of one to ten on the Rocky Horror Picture Show weirdo movie scale, this rate is an eighteen. It takes all comprehension and runs it through a diabolical lawnmower.
Describing my appreciation of She Is Conann makes me feel like a frosted mini-wheat. The high-end frosted side is blown away by the post-modern pop culture decontextualization. Mandico does with film exactly what punk writer Kathy Acker did with literature by replacing all the men of the traditional tales with women running a lesbian empire. Just like Acker retro-fitted sections of books with barbed wire revisions, Mandico takes scenic architecture from select late 20th-century art movies out of their original frame for his transgressive purposes. Endless references to arthouse classics like Satyricon, Diva, and The Night Porter keep the beat throughout the same way Kill Bill endlessly references exploitation genre fare. This is a huge payoff for those of us who have endured long stretches of dull and awkward storytelling in those older pictures just to get to the amazing visions.
“…visual paradise of high-octane psychedelia.”
By pasting the splendors over a pulp storyline, we finally get bathed in wonder while being entertained as well. The storyline does start skewing strangely with the onslaught of anachronisms near the middle. However, it is still followable, similar in complexity to a strip from the old Heavy Metal magazine. Lowensohn is the standout superstar, even while having to wear a rubber dog mask throughout the movie. Her character is supposed to be male, but her voice and styling are pointedly female. It also is no coincidence that she is decked out in what looks like an exact replica of the leather jacket Rainer Werner Fassbender wore while he was still alive. This is one of the movie’s many great examples of why costumes are the new nudity.
She Is Conann is a midnight movie wonderland that has that new cult movie smell all over it. If you have climbed the holy mountain, if you have entered the void, if you have done the time warp again, then meet your new favorite movie. It is the new frontier of film madness.
"…a midnight movie wonderland that has that new cult movie smell all over it."
