MEMOIRS

Fiction, Drama, 82:34 min, 1984, 16mm, colour, NTSC.

Synopsis

“An elegantly choreographed and archly stylized marriage of Fassbinder and Archie comics, the Montreal-made Memoirs is basically an end-of-the-world teen romance. A bright-eyed and idealistic young writer named Johnny Daze (Philippe Baylaucq) comes to town prowling for something to write about. What he finds is a sinister back alley forbidden zone peopled by gays, artists, prostitutes, transvestites and virtually every kind of conceivable bad influence. But his absolute undoing (and his initiation into the underworld) comes in the form of a bewitching but volatile artist/garbage collector/femme fatale named Ida Rage (Norma-Jean Sanders). Vampiristically sucked dry of both dramatic and psychological realism, Bashar Shbib's first feature is an exercise in pop-media deconstruction that takes the camp aesthetic to near-apocalyptic extremes. If Bertholt Brecht had directed Risky Business, it might have turned out something like this.” - Geoff Pevere

"... a Timothy Leary nightmare after one cocktail too many."
Salem Alaton, The Globe and Mail

“... sinister, stylized New Wave melodrama ... visually interesting throughout, with a rhinestone-in-the-rubble look...”
Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Where has all the value gone?"
Mark Halleck, New York Native

"Imagine Fassbinder without the good acting, passionate intensity or naked self-awareness..."
Robert Strauss, Los Angeles Reader

Cast & Crew

STARRING : PHILIP BAYLAUCQ, NORMA-JEAN SANDERS, JULIA GILMORE, ROTWANG, CAROL IADELUCA, CLAIRE NADON, DIANE DULUDE, JENNIFER CLARK, DAVID CANDLEMAKER
CAMERA/DIRECTORS OF PHOTOGRAPHY : CHRISTIAN DUGUAY, BILL KERRIGAN
SOUND : GABOR VADNAY
EDITORS : BASHAR SHBIB, AMY WEBB
MUSIC : "CONDITION", JULIA GILMORE, EDWARD STRAVIAK, PHILIP VEZINA
SCREENPLAY : BASHAR SHBIB, JOHN BECKET WIMBS
BASED ON THE ORIGINAL PLAY : “THE MEMOIRS OF JOHNNY DAZE” BY JOHN B. WIMBS
PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR : BASHAR SHBIB

All Rights Reserved © 1984 Oneira Pictures International