Best Reels: Canadian Cuts | How Egoyan Recontextualizes Eroticism in "Exotica"
For a film that revolves around a strip club—the eponymous “Exotica”—there is very that is actually erotic in Egoyan’s sixth feature—at least, carnally erotic. Sex is transactional in this world. It is quid pro quo, each party involved fulfilling some want or need beyond pleasure. What little arousal is felt in the film is underpinned by malaise and ennui.
Egoyan’s FIPRESCI Prize-winning script is steeped in tragedy, with characters that are lost and unsure of their place in the world. They are not the confident, robustly sexual beings that we’re used to seeing in cinema. Even when a character does engage in intercourse—the mercurial pet store owner Thomas (Don McKellar), for example—it is a double-cross, one man operating on secret directives to bust the other man’s smuggling venture. And even the way Thomas picks up his partner has a distinctly un-sexy, all-business vibe to it. The pregnant owner of club Exotica—Egoyan’s muse, Arsinée Khanjian as Zoe—acts not as a sexually dominant and cutthroat businesswoman, but as a kind and matronly figure. This isn’t to say that there is nothing attractive about a pregnant woman or that the film’s characters aren’t inherently sexual; rather, that the sex in their lives is gratifying for reasons beyond base, physical pleasures, and that their performances of sexuality are not the expected performances.
At the centre of Exotica is Francis (Bruce Greenwood), a middle-aged tax auditor who we learn has lost everything—his wife, his daughter, his credibility—and who attends Zoe’s strip club only so he may hold on to the nurturing relationship he once had with Christina (Mia Kirshner), who is herself now an exotic dancer at the club. Christina is the film’s most sexually-charged symbol, always performing her routines in a schoolgirl’s uniform, but what she offers Francis is not the same as what she offers the club’s other patrons: mutual dependency. Christina was the babysitter of Francis’ late daughter. Francis paid her for her services, and also counselled and consoled her through rough patches with her family. But in the present, it is Christina who consoles Francis. Christina’s binary is Tracey (Sarah Polley), whom Francis pays to “babysit” at his empty house. Tracey stands in for the role once filled by Christina and helps uphold the illusion of a stable domestic situation. Egoyan upends all expectations during the beginning of Exotica, as we come to realize that Francis’ relationship with these two young women is not deviant or manipulative at all, but emotionally stabilizing.
I’ll return to the word transactional, as Francis’ relationship with Christina is also based on an exchange of good and services. Sex work is, by definition, transactional: someone paying someone else for arousal or stimulation. Francis and Christina continue their relationship under the guise of the dancer-customer dynamic, but this is only because it operates within the walls of a gentleman’s club-type establishment. Beyond the setting, there is nothing all that sexual about the transactions. The film’s central incident, Francis touching Christina and being banned from Exotica, occurs because the club’s DJ, Eric (Elias Koteas), manipulates Francis into thinking that touch is what Christina needs and what will help the two uphold their agreement. Eric takes advantage of the wounded Francis, capitalizing on his desperation, and recalibrating Francis’ perspective on his role as a patron of a strip club.
As it turns out, Eric was Christina’s former boyfriend. It also happens that Zoe’s baby is Eric’s, due only to the fact that the two drafted a contract (again, sex is transactional). Eric is the only character who most overtly lusts after another character in Exotica, and thus he becomes the film’s greatest antagonizing force. But rather than treat Eric as a rogue and a ne’er-do-well in the transactional world of Exotica, Egoyan forces us to see Eric’s transgressions in a different light. For one, Eric is deeply troubled individual. “I waste so much time, you know? My days just slip by,” Eric confesses in a flashback scene. It’s not that Eric doesn’t recognize the non-sexual connections forged in erotic contexts; it’s that he has lost the connections that gave his life meaning, and that he will act out of misguided desperation to reclaim them, just as Francis will. The flashback also reveals that Eric is responsible for having found Francis’ kidnapped and murdered daughter. This doesn’t exonerate him from his wrongdoings, but the revelation does help diffuse an out-of-sorts Francis at the film’s climax. It also helps both men see how they have strayed from the moral, professional, and sexual guidelines that are upheld by the club.
When Eric reveals to Francis that he was in the search party tasked with finding Francis’ daughter, he effectively forges for Francis another connection to the grieving father’s fondly remembered past. Francis hugs Eric (a good touch), not to thank Eric, but to once again hold close that link to his wife and his daughter and the former family life that he holds dear. This is the real transaction that club Exotica facilitates for Francis: goods in exchange for some semblance of the past. Francis pays Christina because the transaction represents that role that Francis used to play for Christina, and Christina represents that past version of herself that used to count on Francis. This transaction is photocopied in how we see Francis and Tracey’s relationship work, Francis insisting on handing large amounts of cash over to Tracey so she can also fulfill the role of a past and proto Christina, and thereby fulfill a modicum of Francis’ happy domestic life as well.
Finally, consider the role of mirrors in Exotica. Mirrors are placed all around Zoe’s nightclub, and we see characters gazing into them throughout Egoyan’s film. The mirrors reflect, and for many of the characters in the story, reflect is all they really want to do—on the past, on themselves, on themselves and their lives in the past. But many of the mirrors in Exotica are two-way mirrors – when you gaze into a mirror, there is a chance that someone in addition to yourself could be gazing back. In the context of a strip club, the two-way mirror implies voyeurism and the arousal that voyeurism can inspire. While I think that there is a part of Egoyan interested in voyeurism—in watching and being watched, and what that means to the sexual being—I don’t think this is the focus of his film. As I said before, there is very little that is erotic—traditionally erotic, anyway—about Egoyan’s story. Sex primarily facilitates access to the past. The two-way mirrors allow one to reflect. But there can be someone else behind a two-way mirror looking back at you. There can be someone hidden in your past. It is Eric who we most often see on the other side of these mirrors, because it is his story that is embedded in Francis’ past but shrouded in secrecy. Of course, Francis is unable to see this at first—his view is restricted to one side of the mirror, and even when him and Eric first speak, it is through the barrier of stall doors in a washroom—but Egoyan masterfully reveals connections gradually throughout his story, building mystery and intrigue.
“I wanted to build the story like a striptease,” Egoyan said in an interview with (source unknown), “gradually revealing an emotionally loaded history.” There is an allure to unraveling someone’s past, to delving into the emotional core of an individual. In many ways, this kind of intimacy is more potent than physical arousal; this is an intimacy that results in someone actually being seen and felt, but not necessarily touched. In Exotica, this is where the true “eroticism” lies.
“Exotica” is the first feature of Egoyan’s to be released by the Criterion Collection, and also the first Canadian feature to be released in quite some time. To find more information on the release, and to purchase the DVD or Blu-ray, click HERE.