High art [Widescreen]

Syd (Radha Mitchell) is a young women with a perfectly nice boyfriend and a perfectly good job working for an up-market photography magazine in New York City. But she is bored and keen for adventure, hoping to achieve more status and celebrity through work. A chance encounter with a legendary underground photographer, Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy), enables Syd to move into the exotic fringes of the art world, as well as allowing her to explore her own sexuality and her own desires. But “High Art” is not a New Age film: we watch Syd’s pursuit of Lucy and of fame, and we are asked to confront deeply disturbing questions about the amorality of contemporary relationships and culture. Art may be what all the characters in this film claim to care about, but their real pursuits are status and fame. Only Lucy Berliner, passionate about her photography, seems capable of committing herself to a notion of art that is not simply reducible to commerce. But Lucy’s passion comes at a cost: life on the fringe, the dangers of drugs, and the continual question of where the rent money is going to come from. The final moments of this film, in which Syd faces what is really of value in the world of “high art”, are shattering. Music by Shudder to Think. Sheedy and Mitchell are outstanding. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.