Singapore Sling (2003)

Wonderful Movie

To me, this movie is perfection.

the audience applauded

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

*********Spoiler******************* The Secret of Singapore Sling is revealed! I saw this fine masterpiece of modern post-morbidness and cracked open the perverse brain candy shell to uncover the hidden meaning.The big clue is when the mother and daughter discuss the rules of servants. If you look up the 3 laws of Robotics established by Isaac Asimov you will discover the similarities between "robots" and "servants."1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.The women talk about "servants" following laws like these. They are really talking about how THEY too are "servants" (aka robots) trapped by these rules.Now take note of the women's spastic movements and bizarre speech patterns. And the Singapore Sling character.. he spends a lot of time motionless and never speaks.They are all robots.They are robots struggling to re-enact the Laura storyline (from the classic movie released in 1944) so that they can learn about humanity.As robots they do not understand things like nuances in speaking.. natural human movements, and human sexuality.A further clue is when they are eating. Robots cannot eat! Thus they force food in, and then regurgitate that food back up. Without discomfort except for the regurgitation process itself. And they do not realize how this is not standard eating behavior.And finally, Singapore Sling "himself" is seen rusting... asking about water supposedly. No he was telling them that he had become wet from the outside and his lips were rust covered. Look closely, those are not swollen lips that need water. Those are rusted lips that needed to be polished and cleaned.The woman does not pee on Singapore Sling, she tries to kill him with water released from a valve because she does not know what else to do.If you watch Singapore Sling with this secret uncovered, it becomes a movie that makes sense, and you can delight in seeing a story about robots trying desperately to re-enact a movie they knew about, to try to learn to become human. The water outside and in the pool is the constant threat that keeps them trapped inside.The tragedy is that a robot cannot become human and thus at the end Singapore Sling decides to bury himself and deactivate instead of living the lie.Watch it again with your Isaac Asimov books hand, and enjoy it for what it is... a fascinating study of humanity as seen from an alien perspective.

A gun-shot gumshoe stumbles upon a secluded villa inhabited by a certifiably insane, incestuous, sadomasochistic mother-daughter couple. The daughter straps him down and administers high electric voltage through his forehead, while the mother rides his convulsing pelvis and then proceeds to cool him down with a golden shower. Then things get weird...I won't give you a play by play of this sick and twisted piece of European cinema. If you're simply interested in seeing some of the most extreme S&M stuff ever put on cinema, then by all means see it. However, if you're looking for a little bit more than that, then you might be left wondering "what was the point of all this?" Interesting themes are developed in this film, such as the omnipresence of the absentee father who is the root cause of the womens' insanity, the gumshoe's Pygmalion-like stubborn attempt to "rescue" the girl from her predicament, the mother-daughter rivalry with the inevitable matricide, death as liberation from the misery of life. But none of these themes are adequately fleshed out, making the plot feel disjointed and incomplete.Some of the scenes in Singapore Sling would make Marquis de Sade proud, but Nikolaidis' storytelling would make Pasolini wince. Still, the movie is competently directed and photographed and overall is worth a look. Just don't eat anything before you watch it. You'll thank me later.

wow - this movie is mind-blowing in so many ways... it's on a ranking with the best of world cinema, and is not merely transgressive (though be aware -- it is extremely transgressive). The two female leads personify commitment to an acting role, and along with the male lead go all out for their art. This movie is an integral piece - a complete cinematic vision, from the stellar black and white cinematography (with "deep focus" throwback to Gregg Toland, the man-with-the-print waxed enthusiastically to me about) to the noir overtones and the hard-boiled detective, the "Laura" musical theme interwoven throughout -- to the perverse erotic aesthetic. Plus it takes all this to an operatic level - as fully constructed as a Greenaway film but without the arty label. This movie lays on the sexual taunts and the threat of death in ever-increasing doses. It is ending from the very beginning -- but it takes a long, increasingly loaded ordeal before it finally hits us with the tragic conclusion. You will not have seen anything like Singapore Sling -- it is a work of beauty though it bears repeated viewings to assimilate everything it has to offer.

A beautiful, sexually charged, noirish horror pic from Greek director Nikos Nikolaidis. A mother and daughter, whose modus operandi has parallels with the duo in Shindo's "Onibaba", trick and sexually toy with various gentlemen until Singapore Sling, looking for his lost love, arrives on their scene and unconsciously fractures the mother-daughter dynamic. The two enjoy a very hot sexual relationship that is vividly but not graphically depicted. Other sexual episodes are depicted in delicious detail and the film does not hesitate to go totally hardcore when necessary. For mine, this is an amazingly erotic film that depicts sexual desire as a form of raw anarchy. Various fetishes such as vomiting, urination, sado-masochism and necrophilia are presented honestly and without judgment. Stylistically, the film has a strong, theatrical quality, and it is interesting how Nikolaidis has the actors address the camera at various intervals. The stand-out performance is that of the insane daughter, played by the extraordinary and outlandishly sexy Michele Valley. Panos Thanassoulis, as Sling, has virtually no dialog, but makes his mark in a pivotal but surprisingly neutral role. Black and white cinematography by Aris Stavrou is stunning, as is the splendidly rich production. "Singapore Sling" is an original in every sense of the word and is one of the most accomplished horror films of the modern era.