Stiletto (1981) by Melvie Arslanian
Saturday, February 18, 1984, 8:00 pm
Melvie Arslanian: Stiletto and Fading
Fading, 1983, 23 min., co-written by Ariel Poulenc. U.S. Premier Produced for Belgian television as one of five films shot in Bangkok, Fading evokes a sense of existential trouble and ambiguous failure.
Stiletto, 1981, 55 min., with Tina L’Hotsky, Gary Indiana and Duncan Smith. A mix of new wave film noir, feminism and European art movie. Stiletto follows a young woman cast adrift in New York City. As with Godard, the plot serves as a mechanism for advancing Arslanian’s ideas about the make-up of modern culture “If Nadja doesn’t speak in the film, it’s because she doesn’t have just access to language, to direct speech. There is a split between what she does and what she thinks, she is a place for myth, for fantasy, for the look of others.” (M.A.)