The film opens with a brief stills-illustrated prologue, suggested to Weiss by Ballard himself, which prefaces the coming puzzle by introducing it as an examination of the work of Dr Travers (Victor Slezak), a supposedly brilliant psychiatrist whose offbeat theories are interpreted as signs of nervous collapse and undetected mental illness. In the process, it has been restored to its original running time, despite an alarming 80-minute time listing on its sleeve. Completely bypassing theatrical release, it has now become the elegantly packaged first release of Reel 23, a subsidiary of the Dutch DVD label Filmfreak Distributie. It debuted as a work in progress at the 1998 Rotterdam film festival, later resurfaced at the 1999 Slamdance festival with a running time of 103 minutes, then was voluntarily cut to 90 minutes as Weiss searched for a distributor that never rode to his rescue. Made over a nearly ten-year period on a modest, undisclosed budget, The Atrocity Exhibition has had a release pattern almost as oblique as the chapters in Ballard's controversial, non-narrative novel. Weiss' film is 21st-century cinema, an innovative yet accurate representation of a book that's now more than 30 years old, and heady proof that Hollywood Is Over (if you want it). Ballard's 1970 novel The Atrocity Exhibition is like discovering where film truly stands, or could, 40 years beyond Antonioni and Godard, 30 past Roeg, 20 after Greenaway. To watch this curiously exhilarating sequence in Jonathan Weiss' uncompromised adaptation of J.G. The camera follows his forward motion until he somehow returns to his point of departure and he collapses against the car, vomiting across its hood. A man emerges from the vehicle, shouts the anguished non sequitur "Marilyn Monroe" and breaks into a run he is pursued by the drone of looming, unseen helicopters.
Ballard and WeissĪ black 1950s sedan with big fins idles on a vacant airstrip. Jonathan Weiss USA 2000 Reel 23/Filmfreak Distributie/ Region 0 100 minutes Aspect ratio: 4:3 PAL Features: audio commentaries by author J.G. Tim Lucas enjoys what is probably the best J.G.Ballard adaptation yet made NOZONE - Hollywood is Over DVD review: The Atrocity Exhibition
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