Sally Potter’s new film Rage is promoted as the world’s first
feature-length film shot for mobile phones (currently only in the UK,
but available on babelgum.com as
online chapters, updated every Thursday), but technology is the last
reason to watch this experiment. Shot as a series of one-sided
interviews in front of glorious-hued backdrops, Potter
(Orlando), who never shies from the abstract, builds her
murder-mystery—no blood, no scenery—out of old-fashioned acting,
smartly written monologues and ambient sound. As chaos erupts backstage
at a fashion show, we’re introduced to a large pool of potential
suspects and witnesses, including Judi Dench as a snotty Anna Wintour
type and Dianne Wiest as the quietly simmering former heiress of the
fashion house who laments the garment district’s good-old days. Steve
Buscemi once again plays a grizzled photographer, and most
surprisingly, Jude Law is unrecognizable as Russian supermodel Mink.
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.
