In Fabric: NZIFF Review

In Fabric: NZIFF Review

Peter Strickland's latest is a bizarre fetish piece, packed with languishing imagery and also a bizarre headscratcher that's lashed with humour where its narrative lacks.

Marianne Jean Baptiste is Sheila, a recently dumped housewife whose son is running riot with a French teacher taking the mickey and whose job in front line banking service is overseen by two manager busybodies who have nothing better to do.

When she buys a red dress in the January sales, she's unaware of the Phantom Thread's demonic past and finds herself in a world she doesn't quite fathom.

In Fabric is frankly a stylised piece of utter nuttiness.

And when it embraces its absurdities, it's all the better for it.

But at its core, In Fabric mocks British society mercilessly; whether it's Sheila's constant phone voice reading out her entire phone number or the consumerist desires of those beating down the doors of a department store, Strickland's got an eye on the absurd in this utterly out there piece that revels in the perversity it presents.

While narratively it may go off the rails at certain points, it doesn't hold back from its more fetish edges and stylised insanity. The aesthetics impress much like the Duke of Burgundy did, but whereas here the deep reds and crisp colours hark back to the horror edges, the film's definitely keen to take you on a journey, even if the final destination doesn't offer the answers you may seek.

It's fair to say In Fabric is the most curious entry in this year's Film Festival, but it's also the one offering the most perverse pleasures in the cinema - in terms of laughs, it offers plenty, and in terms of genre nods and erotic weirdness, it's second to none for atmospheric oddities.