Bound

Before the The Matrix the Wachowski Brothers made an excellent, stylish erotic thriller called Bound. I saw the film when it first came out in 1996, and renewed my acquaintance with it last night on DVD. I was reminded how good it was--expertly crafted and rippling with suspense.

The buzz that surrounded the film upon its release was that the central relationship in the film is a lesbian one. This, of course, prompted some titillation, and the Wachowskis were asked to change the relationship to a heterosexual one, but they refused, rightly reasoning that that story had been done many times. I'm glad they stuck to their guns, because the lesbian element gives the film an extra dimension (as well as generating a pretty hot sex scene).

Gina Gershon stars as an ex-con who is picking up some extra money by renovating an apartment. Next door lives a low-level mobster (Joe Pantoliano) and his girlfriend, Jennifer Tilly. Tilly likes what she sees with Gershon, and seduces her. She also tells Gershon, a thief, about some money that got skimmed by another mobster. The money will be in Pantoliano's possession for one night, before it is turned over to the capo di tutti capo. Gershon and Tilly then hatch a plot to separate Pantoliano from the money.

The film is shot with few characters and mostly in the two apartments, and is a marvel of economy. The Wachowskis do have fun with the angles, and draw fetishistic attention to some of the objects in the film, notably guns and an obsession with liquids, particularly those in the bathroom (a scene of Gershon snaking a drain in the opening sets the stage). The three principles are all good, with Tilly playing on her gun moll persona, Gershon being the tough and silent type, and Pantoliano a Vesuvius of Sicilian bombast. The one image I remembered from originally seeing the film was just as strong this time around--a character lying in their own blood, which slowly mixes with a spilled bucket of white paint. Great stuff.