Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 5:7	Budget Medium

Some movies just start of weird and then move towards normal. Yeah, that doesn't happen here.

As the movie opens we watch two women digging a grave and dumping a body in it. The younger woman then explains some of the background and refers to the dead guy as their driver though the only car we see belongs to a private detective who arrives on the scene with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. He is looking for Laura. The younger woman explains that Daddy used to do the killing and he never had much trouble with it. Apparently the two women have had difficulties in the past getting people to die easily. The detective goes up to the house to pursue his case and ends up getting some electroshock therapy. The women torture him, have sex with him, nearly drown him and then feed him. The younger one seems like she wants to run away with him, but after she kills the older woman, the detective kills her. He then heads out to the grave site, crawls in and pulls the loose soil into the grave on top of him.

Okay, I don't have a clue on this one. The back story is pretty much nonexistent and what dialog there is doesn't really explain anything. As best I can tell, the Laura that the detective is looking for showed up at the house three years ago. The mother and daughter living there tried to kill her, but I think the daughter died instead and Laura took her place. I suspect the frequent twitches she has are the result of some shock therapy. The detective tracks Laura down to the house and pretends to be hurt worse than he is, but once they have him tied up, the girls hit him with some pretty extreme electroshock therapy (enough to turn him into a human vibrator) that pretty well scrambles his brains so that he can't function normally. This is visually presented as an inability to handle fine motor skills like tying his shoes. Something about the case has caused him to lose his job and the respect of his peers, but we never find out what. Perhaps it is only his obsession with the case but it feels like there is more to it than that.

The two women are right out of their minds. They play cruel games with each other including re-living the day that Laura first entered their lives looking for a job as a secretary. This game seems to involve a mouth gag, a strap on and a rather violent rape, all of which the younger woman apparently enjoys. For a movie that features a lot of sex and nudity, it is not very arousing. When Laura gets the detective alone for a few minutes she immediately has sex with him and then makes herself vomit on his face. When Mom has sex with the guy, she pees all over his face. I am sure there are plenty of people out there who find this stuff stimulating but I think it is safe to say that this is a little outside of mainstream.

While hesitating to call this a comedy, I did find it amusing. There is a running gag involving a hand grasping at the sisters and the daughter's monologs are often funny, but the film maker's intent wasn't to create belly laughs. The vagueness of the plot and motivations of the characters and the lavishness of the sets makes me feel that he was going for a sensation rather than a story. In a normal narrative story, you cheer for the good guy and boo at the bad guy. Singapore Sling has three characters none of which qualify as either good nor bad. They each have their own little world which may intersect with the others but don't really interact with them. Visually the movie is stunning with deep rich black and white photography and very detailed sets. The daughter sneaks away to the attic to smoke and reminisce where she is filmed behind objects in a cluttered, claustrophobic way. The space is small but well lit and the clutter is made up of childhood toys. The pool area is frequently shot from a distance so that we can see the characters in full length and the grave site is shot tight with the actors barely fitting in the screen. Despite the fact that we are outside, we never see beyond the immediate foreground images. There are lots of scenes of rain falling on foliage and on the car. The car doesn't seem to be on a road or driveway and is frequently shown when the grave site is shown implying both a physical proximity and some deeper, darker connection.

All of which brings me to BeBe La Touk. BeBe was a character on Canadian TV back in the 60's. Because of geographical reasons, I grew up with Canadian TV rather than American TV and as a result watched Alan Hammel, Magic Tom, Johnny Jellybean and BeBe La Touk. To this day there are certain things that can bring a smile to my face that most people would simply not get. If you saw a guy on the street with a vacant look on his face, a cheesy moustache and a knit cap with a tassel on it, it would mean nothing to you. To me it brings back childhood memories of watching TV (Mind you, these are not good memories. Canadian TV was horrid.) The point being that our cultural references are pretty deeply ingrained in us and what the director feels is a broad wink to his native audience might fly right other's heads. A movie that heavily relies on images and cultural associations can be confusing to audiences in other countries. When this started out in black and white with a detective, I was thinking Film Noir. But then it moved into a brightly lit lavish set and I was leaning a little towards "Citizen Kane", and then the daughter vomited all over her sex partner and I thought "Pink Flamingos"? Basically this is just one of those movies that don't make a lick of sense to an American sensibility.

Still, this is worth viewing. Don't try to impose your expectations on it, just let it wash over you. Hmm, perhaps I should rephrase that given the amount of vomit, urine, blood and major body organs that flow through the movie.

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