Aching sincerity in and of itself is not a problem. But
Art of Passion is one of
those movies. First off, it’s written and
directed by a guy named Arthur Bjorn Egeli (!),
a guy who describes himself
without pause as “a visionary artist” in the complementary audio commentary
track on this new DVD release. (That he would then go on from this to make a movie
called
Lap Dancer to me says otherwise;
it says he makes art chiefly to get laid.) But at any rate,
Art of Passion is about an artist, with
a capital A; why, you can tell how good he is by how deadly serious he is.
Shot in 1994 under the title Unconditional Love, the movie stars Pablo Bryant as Steve Buchanan
(above left), a headstrong young landscape painter on the verge of discovery. While
Steve severs ties and acts out in the course of battling for the approval of
his stern, withholding mentor, Robert Hoffman (David Ellsworth, above right), three women in
turn vie for his attention. There’s Theresa (Jessica Brytn Flannery), a young,
sensual model who lives for the images Steve creates of her. Then there’s Melissa
(Swedish-born Isabelle Dahlin), a much more conventional fellow student who
worships the ideal that she believes Steve stands for. Finally, there’s impetuous
abstract painter Mary (Aleksandra Kaniak, probably the real looker of the
three), who is every bit the intellectual match for Steve.
If compliments must be given, it can be honestly said Art of Passion recreates a time and
space fairly convincingly; the movie is steeped in autobiographical detail, and
shot all around Provincetown, where
Egeli studied at the Cape School of Art and apparently continues to
occasionally retreat. The film also features, in easygoing fashion, a good bit
of natural nudity; it’s the type of movie that, if it existed back in the
mid-1980s, could slip through on some second-rate cable channel like Cinemax,
and make 12-year-olds feel vaguely funny in their pants. The problem is that
the movie is enormously pretentious, extremely stilted and full of ridiculous problems
and dialogue. Bryant makes for a dour, unpersuasive lead, and the fact that so
many women are required to orbit him like satellites is unconvincing. Irritation overwhelms interest fairly quickly, making for a tedious 90 minutes.
If the product itself is of dubious value, Liberation
Entertainment’s special edition DVD release is a nice effort, at least. While
the full-frame transfer leaves much to be desired — studded with grain and
debris, it’s really quite bad, but reflective of the low regard in which the
presumably 16mm source material was held, I guess — Dolby digital 2.0 audio tracks in English
and Spanish capture the low-key aural demands of the movie in clear fashion.
There’s also a spate of supplemental features, beginning with the
aforementioned audio commentary track from Egeli, in which he talks a lot about
the inspiration for the movie, and its many parallels to (and divergences from)
his own life.
Twelve-plus minutes of deleted scenes kick off the meatier
portion of extras, but the chief bonus feature is 22 minutes of new interviews,
with Bryant, Egeli, Kaniak, Ellsworth, Dahlin, Hal Streib and many more. All
sorts of revealing tidbits pop up here, and Kaniak is most forthcoming with the
gossip, though it’s not exactly that
tawdry. She talks about her nude scenes, and the panic she felt upon arriving
on set and finding out that there was no key make-up artist. Centerpiece Bryant,
meanwhile, is a yawn of an interview, leaving one not to wonder why his career didn’t advance far beyond this movie. Talent
files, the movie’s 90-second trailer, an expansive photo gallery (which includes
some images that can be zoomed in on), an essay by composer Michael Errington and
DVD-ROM screensavers and computer wallpaper round out the disc. Only the awful
video quality mars this presentation. D (Movie) B (Disc)
