Not the camp-fest I was expecting from this legendary underground film. The gimmick (performers are actually Barbie dolls) wears out after two minutes and what you are left with is a surprisingly engaging rumination of Carpenter’s life, her interaction with the era, her music and the psychological disorder that killed her. The Barbie footage is mixed in with documentary footage, plus some very arty montage, but it all, surprisingly, works. I wish I could see this not on a multi-generational VHS bootleg.
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Jordan Hoffman is a New York-based writer and film critic working for The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Thrillist, Times of Israel, NY Daily News and elsewhere.
He is the host of ENGAGE: The Official Star Trek Podcast, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and challenges you to a game of backgammon.
If I were walking around Manhattan, glimpsed down an alley and saw Richard Carpenter beating the shit out of Todd Haynes, I’d run down that alley … and hold Haynes down so Carpenter could kick his ass even harder.
I’m a camp aficionado as much as the next guy, but something about this really grated on me. I guess when a family member dies, whatever the circumstance, you tend to view these sort of things differently afterwards.
Put yourself in Richard Carpenter’s shoes. His sister spends the last few years of her life starving herself to death, and a few years afterwards, some guy re-enacts what he perceives to be her life with Barbie Dolls, making sure that the Carpenter family comes off like a bunch of over-bearing idiots who contributed to her demise, without offering any sort of help.
Whether or not that’s true (I’d bet it’s far from it, and there are oceans of pain and regret these people have gone through) isn’t so much the point here. The point is having someone take a very painful, very real situation … and re-create it smirkingly with Barbie dolls?! If your sister starved herself to death and someone did this to your family and her afterwards, I’d hope you’d be filled with a murderous rage — I know I would be.
As it is, I just sort of shake my head, say what the fuck, and appreciate the audacity of something like this, while recognizing how ultimately hollow and annoying it really is. Hats off to the guy for a truly disturbing piece of art, although I’m not sure I’m feeling disturbed in the way Haynes may have intended.
I agree that Richard Carpenter and their family have a right to be pissed off — but I also think that Haynes (perhaps misguidedly) wanted to make a loving, understanding film. I think the guy is on the level and wasn’t going for camp. Maybe I’m wrong.
Certainly the Carpenter family is portrayed as the bad guys. There was even one moment when I turned to Ann and said, “THAT’S why we’re watching this on a 9th generation pirate copy.”
WOW…i didnt realize how controvesial this movie was…..i just thought it was funny and kind of sad….who knew it could be taken so seriously….andim sure he ment it to be offensive in a way…but i’m more sure the use of barbies was more of a comment on how society forces us to live up to a scary and unrealistic physical ideal…..at least thats what i got out of it…
even better is “ernest and bertrum”…witch is based on the final speech in “a childrens story” with shirley mcclain ….but acted out by two grown men in bert and ernie costumes….i’ll see if i can wrangle it up for you….i have it somewhere…..