Word: anastasias
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...needn't worry about the plot. The intrigue of Desire lies in what happens to what is happening. To get at the potential of Anastasia Vote, the ineffable potential of magic and mystery, Hunter destroys the narrative form, that apple-pie order march of elements we all know and love--elements like time, cause and effect, motivation (spell it out, son), resolution. Yes, they all break down. (Like the junkyard, like Anastasia--you've got it now, BREAKDOWN is the theme.) The threads of plot tempt you to join a surrealistic scavenger hunt. Don't. Don't fumble about...
...disconnected house, on a disconnected morning, Anastasia comes suddenly upon a little girl (Karen Ascheim), the daughter of a married lover. There is a chilling scene. Two witches in a sun-lit room, mirror images through time. Anastasia confronts her small imp of the perverse, little Pearl in a red frock. What does she feel before that inscrutable child? Envy for times past, fear for the child's future indifference before accusation, shame? Nothing so simple. In that transcendent silence, white spheres of guilt and innocence flash and tumble, collide and fuse. Souls changes places, lose and gain whole years...
...deep, our girl Anastasia. She is a being. All the others are characters, shadows of her illumination. I call her a witch, but she is not a promiscuous variation on Sinister Madonna (the Hunter girls?), classic marble zombie who ruled with an iron broomstick. No, Desire tells of human witches and the witchcraft of love. Strange fires burn here, and one could look a long time without understanding. Apparently Anastasia is destroying herself. Others come to pillage, sometimes to help, and lo! discover that they have been deceived. No warm sweets from the blaze. In this parable of bad love...
...curious distance as if its people and actions were washed in the gideon colors of Dream. The salient elements of Dream are speed and deliberation. Desire approximates both. The plot careens arrogantly through a disequence of scenes, no connections provided: the junkyard; Twelvetrees in a hallway, in a bathroom; Anastasia on a long walk; Twelvetrees making love to Samantha; Blaine in his telephone booth. If we seize on any pattern, it may be a crazy spiral about Anastasia herself, about her diffuse Presence. But "spiral" promises too much. Montage is better, montage through time (close your eyes and picture Dream...
...tick-tock eye. A long closeup--almost a still--of Samantha's fragile face penetrates to the madonna calm and compassion she possesses. The epiphany is not just the result of Maeve Kinkead's fine acting. Hunter takes the time to look, really look--and we see. When Anastasia washes body paint off her legs, the marijuana camera stops time to absorb the beauty of this motion still-life, the colors of paint and flesh, the dissolution of the paint in water, her wonderfully slow movements to the drawn-out Streetchoir music and lyrics...