I think that one of the problems about making a film that deals with alienation is that you run the risk of alienating your audience.

Zach Clark has made a genuinely "quirky" and "offbeat" film and has extracted a performance from Melodie Sisk that is completely mesmerising. Her silence has an unsettling and hypnotic effect. It really is something to behold.

The problem (as if I am in any way qualified to point out the problems with anyones Art) is that none of the characters possess enough warmth for you to really care about what happens to them.

When "Lorraine" loses her boyfriend it is difficult to feel sorry for her; firstly because she has distanced herself from him by refusing any sort of intimacy (not just sexual I would wager) and secondly because he is such a berk that you can't help but feel she is better off without him.

Either way you don't care.

"lorraine" is so distanced from everyone...her flatmate, her boyfriend, her clients, her family, her colleagues that you find yourself becoming more and more distanced from her.

There are moments that are laugh out loud funny but in an era when we have seen all there is to see in films like "Shortbus" and now "Antichrist" this film is never shocking. The life of a dominatrix has been shown to us by Nick Broomfield in all it's glory and in absolute reality so Clarks treatment of the subject can never be as controversial as he may have intended it to be.

To my mind the real discovery in this Under The Radar movie is Clark himself for managing to direct THE performance of the festival (I know it's early days!) and in forcing his audience to deal with the issue of alienation while being alienated. He is also to be commended for producing some really beautiful shots over the course of the film...many of them featuring Sisk in full dominatrix mode, inflicting all manner of humiliations on her clients while remaining totally distanced from what she is doing.

I'm rambling.

Goodnight.

I agree with much of the prvious comments made. It's a strange thing to go into a film that has advised the audience to expect scenes of strong sex only to leave feeling not even mildly disturbed! I get what Zach Clark was trying to say with this film, its very obviously about the alienation of the central character Lorraine from everyone around her, colleagues, boyfriends, parents, and while Clark really nails this feeling, as does Melodie Sisk, I also felt alenated as a spectator. In many ways the point of alienation was hammered home so often and for so much of the films running time that it lessened the impact for me, in fact I began to feel bored around the hour mark. That's not to say there aren't laughs to be had in the film, there are, but these moments are often replayed throughout the movie, dulling their initial impact. I will lopk forward to Mr Clarks next film as technicaly he produced an interesting film however I jope next time the audience is also invited to the party.