Circle Collective / Vinegar Syndrome
By "Doc" Hunter Bush, MovieJawn podcast director, host of the HWGW Podcast
The Visitor comes to Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome partner label Circle Collective. Directed by artist and provocateur Bruce Labruce, The Visitor reimagines Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968) for a modern landscape. Circle Collective's release boasts a vibrant video and audio package, and a reasonable assortment of bonus features. However, the film's subject matter might make this a tough one to justify purchasing.
The Movie Itself: 4 stars
I've covered auteur director Bruce Labruce before. His film Saint-Narcisse (2020) has some similarities with The Visitor, namely overt sexuality and layers of meaning, but also some differences: The Visitor is much less a narrative feature than it is a work of art. With a narrative that's light on dialogue, heavy on symbolism, and heavier on explicit sexual content, The Visitor also has slogans appearing briefly but unmistakably on screen in bold text, making this feel like the video that would play as part of a larger art installation.
That's neither a compliment nor a criticism, it's just a fact. The Visitor breaks the reality of what little narrative it has--a stranger comes to a wealthy family, seducing them all and upending their previously sedate lives of privilege--to boldly underline its themes as much at the audience as for them. These text-heavy moments all come, no pun intended, during hardcore sex scenes, so my reading was that these slogans were representative of the titular visitor (Bishop Black) passing the seeds of revolution and social change to whomever he was passing his non-symbolic seed to at that moment.
In one of the special features, Bruce LaBruce talks about his views on pornography as art, and for the most part, I get where he's coming from (again, no entendre intended). There are, of course, exceptions to everything, but pornography is a particular art form and regardless, that is the direction Labruce is approaching this film from: blurring the lines between what is considered pornography and what is considered art.
Ultimately The Visitor is a lot. Deliberately provocative and shocking, but never for its own sake, the film asks its audience to consider: What if it was this easy to affect social change? What if emotional intelligence, empathy for others, and a desire for a better world were transmissible through great, satisfying, goopy, alien, sex? Could we actually just fuck our troubles away? I don't know about you, but I'm willing to try.
The Video: 4 stars
Bruce Labruce is a visual artist as much and as aggressively as he is a sociopolitical one. As a result, The Visitor looks incredible. The shot compositions are well-considered and add a certain artificiality to the world of the film that actually helps it. This is a heightened reality to start with, so when the fourth wall is, well not broken exactly, more like graffitied upon, it doesn't throw you as much as it might otherwise.
The colors are equally as impactful. The establishing shot of the family's home is overlayed with four quadrants of bold colors: brown, yellow, red, and white. Red and yellow especially are used to grab and hold your attention throughout, sometimes in costuming or lighting, sometimes as the aforementioned text.
I should mention that there's quite a bit of strobing, especially where the text on screen is concerned, so if you're particularly sensitive to such things, you'll want to avoid this release.
The Audio: 4 stars
The Visitor is actually pretty light on dialogue (relatedly, I don't believe there was an option for subtitles? unless I entirely missed it) and the dialogue that is present sounds like it was recorded on set. I'm not sure if this is purely a cost-saving measure, a nod to the production of pornography, or maybe some combination of the two? Regardless, the audio, while clear, mostly serves the score.
That score, by Hannah Holland, is fittingly unique. In addition to thumping EDM-style beats, what I would describe as "sci-fi video game sounds" come and go, adding a Halloween spooky-house vibe to the events that are weirdly appropriate. The Visitor, while explicit, and bluntly addressing the issues Labruce has in his sights, is also made with tongue firmly planted in cheek (I will not be making any jokes about that phrasing at this time). Art, especially in Labruce's hands, is more than just one thing. One need not be entirely serious to be taken seriously. All of this, even telling truth to power, can--and should--be fun.
The Supplements: 4 stars
I'm not sure what most people look for in bonus features, but what I'm most often looking for is context, and the features on this release give it in droves. Porn is Political is Labruce discussing his view on pornography as it relates to art. Samm Deighan's video essay goes into greater detail on some of these points, including the influence and inspiration of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968). Both are fascinating, especially seeing how directly some scenes in The Visitor echo Pasolini's earlier film.
The essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas also gives some very specifically British context for the film, citing the origins of some of the anti-immigrant soundbites that compose the opening sequence of The Visitor, which was much appreciated. If recent events are anything to go by, being able to provide receipts for the awful things said by almost anyone given even a modicum of power is incredibly useful so that we all know the character of those we're talking about. The essay also provides numerous other cinematic parallels--perhaps intentional, perhaps not--scattered throughout the film.
- Porn is Political - introduction by Bruce Labruce (10:09) (HD)
- The Sexual Revolution of the Proletariat from Pasolini to Bruce Labruce - video essay by Samm Deighan (14:22) (HD/SD)
- Behind the Scenes featurette (34:44) (HD/SD)
- X-rated trailer (2:00) (HD)
- Theatrical trailer (2:00) (HD)
- Stills gallery
- Booklet with essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
There is a slipcover edition, which may still be available, featuring appropriately attention-grabbing imagery from Adam Maida:
Final Thoughts: Recommended
I hadn't even experienced the works of Bruce Labruce before this year, but now--with just two of over a dozen features under my belt--I've become something of a fan. I like the messaging in Labruce's films, I like the abundance of style with which they're made, I like the sense of humor in them and how it balances the sensuality and sexuality.
Certainly, The Visitor is a much more niche film; more confrontational, more unflinching, than something like Saint-Narcisse--which, don't get me wrong, is still not for everyone--but it is no less well-made, no less enjoyable. I wholeheartedly recommend The Visitor for most audiences, but fully acknowledge that some, perhaps a large percentage, will likely write it off instead of engaging with it.
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