FANTASIA 2016: ‘Rupture’ Review

Jo Satana will be delivering reviews from films exhibiting at the 2016 Fantasia International Film Festival!

I find it fitting how the first film to relieve the stress I accumulated after a whole year without Fantasia was by shoegazing fetish auteur Steven Shainberg. The director behind one of the most approachable sub/dom kink flics to “get it right” in Secretary, Shainberg’s return to filmmaking after a ten-year hiatus is Rupture. How’s that for buildup?

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Rupture dives into the scifi/horror pool and stars this era’s Sigourney Weaver, Noomi Rapace. Rapace plays Renee Morgan, a single mom who is doing her best to provide a nurturing family environment for her teenage son, while at the same time trying to feed other instinctual urges.  After dropping her kid off with his father before meeting a friend for a skydiving lesson, things go sideways as she’s kidnapped and held against her will in a mysterious facility. The motives behind this kidnapping are unraveled at the pace of a bondage session and elements of kink are of course prevalent in Rupture: latex, binding, pain, tease, denial and release. These are the colors that Shainberg paints Rapace with, translated by careful and calculated cinematography courtesy of Karim Hussain. Hussain also plays it kinky with viewers by switching between colorful, popping canvasses, back to sterile, empty hues that filtered through in his other works, such as Antiviral.

This back and forth permeates Rupture, as Renee’s situation evolves into something that is more layered than “simple captive”, much like a sub who uses submission as a form of willful empowerment. She realizes that others share her fate and that her captors exhibit an obsessive fascination towards their subjects, much like someone who is fascinated with the heel of a shoe, or the shine of patent leather. If you want to get academic, Rupture also examines the struggle between who you project yourself as “outwardly” and who you really are on inside, or who you’re meant to be. A theme that is prevalent in the universe of those who play.

In that way however, I’m kind of pulling at laces here. The film was at moments tedious for me and I’d like to think that the associations I’m making is in part due to the expectation that Shainberg’s name is associated with. Anticipation, tease and denial. Rupture is designed with pockets of emotional bursts that are followed by empty, unfulfilling exposure. Cue expository scene chewing. As Renee gets an understanding of her situation, her situation forces her to question her emotions, while at the same time presenting her with choices that curiously remind me of another kink classic: The Matrix. Renee is encouraged to accept reality. But is this reality really what it seems, or is it part of a larger game? Rupture’s wonky narrative choices veer it into serial T.V. territory, pointing a finger to sci-fi classics like The Outer Limits, even Twin Peaks at times. But that’s a matter of taste: some people taste cherries when they drink wine, others taste the colour red.

For me, without giving too much away, Rupture was like slowly being bound by rope. Restrictive with momentary satisfying tugs. Up to you to decide if you’re into that kind of thing. No judgement. This is, as you know, a safe place.

P.S. A very sticky happy 20^th to Fantasia. Here’s to many more!

SO LONG SUNSHINE, I’M OUT!

Jo “Daddy” Satana