MURDER and murder
Director: Yvonne Rainer
Writer: Yvonne Rainer
Cast: Joanna Merlin, Kathleen Chalfant, Catherine Kellner, Isa Thomas, Yvonne Rainer
Part of: identities Festival
Seen on: 16.6.2015

Plot:
Doris (Joanna Merlin) and Mildred (Kathleen Chalfant) are both older when they fall in love, though that doesn’t mean that they can’t be happy with each other. Although it does make things a little more difficult since they are already set in their ways and sometimes that makes communicating with each other a little difficult. When Doris is diagnosed with breast cancer, director Yvonne Rainer (herself) steps in to provide information.

Rainer is an experimental filmmaker and MURDER and murder certainly doesn’t play by the usual cinematic rules. But for such an idiosyncratic film, it is surprisingly accessible and highly entertaining.

MURDER and murder doesn’t care for realism or time in its narration – the ghosts of Young Mildred (Catherine Kellner) and Doris’ mother Jenny (Isa Thomas) provide commentary on Doris and Mildred’s relationship together. Nor does it care to pretend that the film isn’t actually a film – Yvonne Rainer steps into the movie, introduces herself as the director and continues to give various information and statitstics, in particular on breast cancer, creating a double meta-level since Rainer herself suffered from breast cancer and obviously works through her own history with the film.

I loved both the commentary we got, both from Jenny and Young Mildred and from Rainer herself, so I definitely didn’t mind that the movie didn’t play by the usual rules by including it.

But what really made the movie was that from the get-go, there was a warmth to it, and a creative and smart making fun of serious topics. Never disrespectfully, but always with a wink and a twinkle in the eyes. And the fact that I really liked both Doris and Mildred (wonderfully played by Merlin and Chalfant), despite or probably because of all the edges and roughness they came with.

Since experimental or artsy cinema easily becomes exhausting, it was wonderful to get a film that is strange in many ways and calls our relationship with film itself into question, a film that wonders whether movies can’t be different from what we usually get – and have it still be entertaining, emotional and funny.

Summarizing: Probably an extremely nice start if you’re looking to get into more experimental cinema. Definitely worth watching.