Rape

A beautiful European woman who speaks no English is relentlessly pursued through a cemetery, Chelsea, and a London flat by a camera crew in this 76-minute feature made by Yoko Ono in collaboration with John Lennon in 1969. Though this is no more boring or vapid than the other Ono and Ono-Lennon films I’ve seen, it lasts much longer; candor compels me to admit that I didn’t make it all the way to the end, but I didn’t have the impression that any further revelations were in store. The apparent inspiration was Ono’s anger about the photographers who hounded her and Lennon during this period, and the familiar notion that camera surveillance constitutes a form of rape; what makes it exceedingly unpleasant is that the film seems to be perpetuating this form of cruelty without conveying any new insights about it. (One hopes the victim was at least paid well for her distress.) (JR)

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