On the Edge

Director: Soska Sisters
Starring: Buddle, Ola Dada, Andrea Jin, Alana Finn-Morris, Brianne Finn-Morris, Mackenzie Gray

Runtime: 114 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes:

A psycho-sexual drama, a self-loathing husband submits to a dominatrix, remembering his past, caught up in dreams and hallucinations, with diabolical and Biblical references.

A specialist film, not for a wide audience. It is a strong psychosexual drama, a father and husband, Peter, with a self-loathing because of his mother when he was a boy. He books a hotel penthouse for 36 hours with a dominatrix – why? The loathing, the need for humiliation, degradation, the need to be cleansed, purged, healed. It seems he is walking willingly into his hell.

Some audiences will be curious but give up after a while. Some will be prurient, especially by the “kinky” aspects of sado-masochism, torture porn – and some overtones of horror movies. Others will take the themes seriously, the pain, physical, psychological, spiritual, the submission, the violent treatment by the mistress.

But, there is much more. It is the work of the Soska Sisters (the violent American Mary, and the remake of David Cronenberg’s Rabid) so we know where their interests lead. While the scenes of domination, humiliation and punishment (whips and cage) other staples of this kind of psychological story, there is much more, especially in the dialogue.

Promotion suggests a Satanist dominatrix (a cue for the prurient), but this aspect and suggestions of the supernatural do not appear until an hour in. By this time, Peter is having dreams, hallucinations, memories of childhood abuse. He sometimes sees his mocking alter ego.

One commentator said that a local priest would be upset by the mistress’s references to myths of Lilith, Astarte, Athena. On the other hand, the priest (and others familiar with biblical texts) would be surprised to hear the mistress and Peter both quoting texts from Isaiah 52, the Fourth Servant Song, with Its themes of suffering for others, atonement. Peter had been wearing a crucifix but this had been taken from him. Later, there is a sequence of quoting the Adam and Eve story from Genesis, creation, male-female, temptation, God, the serpent (and the appearance of an actual Serpent), the tree of knowledge of good and evil, nakedness and shame.

The Dominatrix speaks to Peter several times of Free Will. Well, there are few breaks for Peter (except in His Imagination), the mistress, the maid at the hotel and the concierge, relax before participating in Peter’s purging. His wife and twin daughters then appear, taunting, challenging. Jungian analysts might be interested in considering Peter and these female characters and his Anima.

Yes, The Oscar Sisters graphically portrayed Peter’s violent journey into his past (like a personal judgment at death). (The stance of the Soska Sisters is made clear by an opening television interview with a senior senator campaigning against pornography to cheering crowds – with a revelation at the end that the senator is under investigation for pornography on his computer.)

The result of the experience is not destructive but rather, cathartic, a psychosexual journey towards healing.