20/20 Filmsight - Film Criticism by David O'Connell

A provocative title. And provocative subject matter too. Ah, but what a waste…………..not of a good idea, but of celluloid. I’m staggered at the sheer pointlessness of some films. I say this mostly in reference to American films in which screenplays are elusive items to be conjured up after a special effects pitch. But now an Israeli filmmaker has matched the deeds of Michael Winterbottom, an otherwise fascinating filmmaker, who in 2004 made his most useless contribution to cinema with the awful 9 Songs.

Hagar Ben-Asher’s The Slut, a film in which the director performs triple duty as writer and lead actor, centres on a dusty, primordial Israeli town with few inhabitants. The men gravitate towards two-time single parent Tamar (Ben-Asher) who ‘services’ them all, without any qualms it seems. All this sexual activity seems a part of the ebb and flow of this nothing place.

Then along comes Shai (Ishai Golan), a former member of the community who has returned to clear his deceased mother’s things. Naturally he remembers the alluring Tamar. And just as naturally, like every male member within a certain radius, he falls for Tamar. In double quick time he becomes another of her lovers. But this deluded creature actually imagines a future with a woman who inspires silent, jealous stares if she lingers at a single watering hole too long.

Little of the characters’ motivations are spelt out in dialogue. Words are a rare treasure in this film. Clearly writing is not Ben-Asher’s strength, but then why bother with clarification when you can fill in time with an erect penis or two being stroked for the sake of titillation? We’re highly desensitised to this sort of thing these days of course; explicit sex acts have become almost de rigueur in foreign cinema of a certain sort. There’s now little room left to move for filmmakers looking to truly shock audiences. The attempts continue later on as Tamar and Shai’s lovemaking enters a shady region in which you have to wonder at whether it's merely simulation.

The Slut might be considered a slow burn drama, but the fire we’re anticipating is never lit. Instead it draws towards a baffling, irritating conclusion in which the notion of revenge gets twisted on its head through a couple of risible permutations - one of which involves the corruption of a child.

What are we expected to make of all this? That a leopard can’t change its spots? That amorality is like a plague that can’t be cured? And can a man who falls in love with a ‘loose’ woman reasonably expect her to save herself for him alone, thus spurning both her overpowering carnal desire and need to sate all and sundry?

You’ll want to cry at the simultaneously pointless and twisted manner in which Ben-Asher’s toxic film floats towards its resolution. The aberrant psychological implications are hard to shake. Superfluous and transparent, The Slut (2011) is devoid of subtext or creative design. It simply exists for the world to consume.



I say: A meandering, dreary tale spiked with explicit sex acts to give it more life than it deserves.

See it for: No reason I can think of, unless you've been barred access to certain items of your most prized collection by your morally outraged, overbearing mother.