Director: Ginnetta Correli
MPAA Rating: NR
According to its synopsis, director Ginnetta Correli’s documentary The Beauty Strip is a film about individual erotic perception, however, in execution, it seems that perception is focused on the viewer rather than the subjects of the film itself. This short journey into nude modeling is comprised of experimental vignettes, shot using various filters set to bombastic dubstep and electronic music. While the film looks quite good in certain areas, the overall message of the film becomes blurred behind what can be viewed as just a series of softcore porn clips.
The trouble with this film comes from the way in which the information, or lack thereof, is presented. If the film is aiming to explore different facets of eroticism in order to garner an understanding of its various forms, it falls short of that goal by giving the viewer no information about the models involved in the experiment.
The film works better as a self-reflective look at what we, the viewer, find to be erotic and what those guidelines may be. It touts its cinéma vérité style and frequently adds the home-camcorder overlay onto the screen, making it feel like we are the ones doing the shooting. Unfortunately, we often hear the voice of whom I would assume is Correli behind the camera, speaking with the subjects, which negates the cinéma vérité angle.
Just because a film uses a smattering of filters, including the dreaded negative lens, it doesn’t necessarily mean the movie is then inherently more artistic. Many of the different styles used within this film actually do work and give the segments a more arthouse feel than, say, a video posted on SuicideGirls, but this is a documentary that straddles the line between thought-provoking and smut-peddling. The various dirty, rundown backdrops where the shoots take place are another plus, juxtaposing the models against an abandoned building or rundown house.
Each segment of The Beauty Strip is set to a different bass-infused electronic song, most of which work well within the context of the visuals. In at least one instance, however, the cuts pattern the beat of a particularly spastic dubstep tune, which proves to be somewhat nauseating.
Other than showing attractive, yet seemingly broken, girls strip on screen for five minutes at a time, there’s just not a lot going on in The Beauty Strip. It stands out in the visual and music department and many of the locations for the shoots are interesting, but it lacks in conveying its message.
