by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $10.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Nathan Hill, Shar Dee, Hao Dao
Intro:
... the chintziness is simply part of the fun.
Bitter Desire star/producer Nathan Hill is a low-key fascinating figure in Australian cinema. The briefest way to explain his appeal is that, over this three-and-a-half-decade-long filmography, he has worked on films with such attention-grabbing titles as Vampire Hooker Hotel, Sheborg Massacre, and Apocalypse Canoe. He specialises in the kind of lo-fi Z-grade material that used to frequent seldom-plundered corners of physical video stores back when they were still a thing (more’s the pity), and while it’s relatively easy to look at such cinema and turn one’s nose up at it, there’s usually some kind of nostalgic thrill to quick-and-nasties like this still being made today. And Hill’s latest effort is no different.
Clocking in at barely over an hour, Bitter Desire is styled like a made-for-cable erotic thriller. Hill stars as Steve, a policeman injured in the line of duty, who now requires a visiting nurse to help with his physical recovery. However, his usual nurse (Hao Dao’s Harmony) is soon supplanted by Lexi (Shar Dee), the girlfriend of the crim that Steve was injured by and who is now serving life in prison, who wants revenge… and perhaps something a bit more. Cue the Joe Eszterhás flashbacks!
Filmmaker and critic Alfred Eaker once coined the term ‘naïve surrealism’ to describe films that attain the kind of weirdness found in the works of David Lynch and Guy Maddin… but without trying to. Think films by Ed Wood, Neil Breen, or Tommy Wiseau, and you’ve got the general idea. Bitter Desire is riddled with that sensation. More so than a direct story, the film feels like a fever dream, where Hill and his supporting cast recite their lines as needed, trudge (or, in the case of the ankle-braced Steve, hobble) through the same two or three sets, and give the impression that things are happening…
Not that we’re complaining. The aesthetic not only leads to knowing chuckles at the odd on-screen decisions (like the classic blocking mistake of mime-drinking from a clearly-empty cup), but there’s a level of self-awareness baked into the film itself. Along with being pulled between the advances of his wife and his ‘nurse’, Steve is shown to be a film buff and home video maker, showing off his tapes (complete with rustic camcorder) and even sitting down to watch This Is Madness, a documentary about the 2002 film Radio Samurai, which Hill himself featured in. It’s these little moments that help bring the languid nature of the production as a whole into perspective, giving a metatextual look at the star as someone who simply needs to immerse himself in the pictures, even while in the process of making them.
Look, Bitter Desire isn’t going to win any awards. Nor is it even trying to. It can feel rather sleepy in its narrative progression, its characters are thinly-sketched, and the stray comments about skin tone hit like flashbangs. But for those with fond memories of late-night TV discoveries of particularly odd films that one likely never would’ve found otherwise, or just get a thrill in social settings from talking about first-hand experiences with films like The Quarantine Hauntings, Lead Me Astray, or the works of Soda Jerk, the chintziness is simply part of the fun. It’s the kind of oddity that should make any self-respecting cinephile at least appreciate that we exist in a world where, amidst so much IP-reliant bloat and AI-generated dissociation, the grindhouse lives on.
