BANDAGED(Dir. Maria Beatty, Germany, 2009)
Oh dear. The first train-wreck of a film at this year's MQFF was this German-made, English language psychodrama which was advertised as a 'lesbian horror' film in the festival program. The only horrific moments in Bandaged were generated by the sheer awfulness of this film, an overwrought melodrama that tipped over into truly camp territory. When you're one of dozens of people in the cinema not even trying to stifle your giggles during the truly bad sex scenes, you know you're watching a real stinker.
Lucille (Janna Lisa Dombrowsky) is a home-tutored student whose father, Arthur (Hans Piesbergen) a brilliant but smothering surgeon, refuses to let her leave home to study poetry, preferring that she stay and do home-tutored science instead. In a moment of destructive teen angst Lucille pours acid over herself. Ouch. Enter her nurse, Joan (Sussane Sachse), who gradually realises that Arthur is trying to restore Lucille's face so that she resembles her dead mother; and who also falls in love - or at least in lust - with her heavily bandaged patient. Cue tongue flicking, bad sex faces, and generally laughable scenes.
Clearly trying to recreate the poetic horror of the 1960 film Eyes Without a Face, director Maria Beatty fails dismally, thanks in part to the stitled and melodramatic performances of her cast, and the film's inability to evoke the gothic mood it aims for. Laughablly bad, Bandaged is a film I can only recommend to people such as my friend Miranda, who is always looking for another film to watch at her regular Bad Lesbian Movie night.
Rating: One and a half stars
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