Necrophilia makes for love story in 'Kissed'

When the people run to theaters to see the new romantic movie, "Kissed," it would be best if they are forewarned that it is not the usual sappy Hollywood romance.

In fact, the movie is anything but mundane.

"Kissed" tells the story of a pretty girl named Sandra Larson (Molly Parker) who has a fascination with death - not just the morbidity of it, but the spiritual and mysterious aspects of it. Her fascination with death leads her to a local funeral parlor, where she becomes an employee. It is there, surrounded by death, that she finds meaning in her life.

During the day, Sandra learns the tricks of the trade. Throughout the night, Sandra experiences intimate sexual relationships with the male corpses, which allows her to feel what it's like to "cross over" to the other side.

As she works at the funeral home and studies the art of embalming, she meets Matt (Peter Outerbridge), a lonely and passionate medical student with whom she falls in love.

According to Lynne Stopkewich, the director of "Kissed," "Matt is the first person to whom Sandra has revealed herself in a long, long time. He is fascinated by her passion and then develops his own obsession with it. Like Sandra, he wants to lose himself in it, feel what it's like to cross over, get out of his head for a moment. He wants to experience sex in the way Sandra does and achieve what the French call 'le petit mort' - orgasm ... described as 'the little death.'"

But Sandra refuses to allow Matt to experience her world in which love, sex and death intermingle, resulting in "Kissed" becoming a movie about a tragically transcendent love.

Though the movie tells the tale of a woman who is a necrophiliac, the film does not focus itself entirely on this tabooed subject.

"The film is more about obsessive love than anything else. And love, nature and desire. And about larger things like sexuality and mortality," Stopkewich said.

"It wasn't ever meant to be a documentary or a slice of life about a character who has this particular sexual preference," she continued. "It was more than that. So in making this movie, given our limited resources, I thought it would probably be the strongest choice to focus on her story and to maintain that voice throughout the movie no matter what.

"And there was a lot of temptation in the shooting and the editing and all the way along, even the writing to sort of create all these other subplots of other characters. But you have to be pragmatic when you're making your first film and just focus on taking one little step at a time and handle what you can handle."

For Stopkewich, "Kissed" is the Canadian director's trophy after a lifetime of hard work and dedication. As a chronic film student, Stopkewich completed a BFA in film production at Concordia University in Montreal, where she created her first 16mm short films: "The Flipped Wig," a musical comedy about a girl's first trip to the gynecologist, and "The $3 Wash & Set," a hilarious romp through a 1960s beauty salon. After winning various festival awards in New York and San Francisco for both short films, Stopkewich then headed to the University of British Columbia to complete an MFA in film.

With so much knowledge and expertise gained from years as a film student, Stopkewich felt that she was ready to tackle her first feature film.

After falling in love with a short story about necrophilia, titled "We So Seldom Look on Love," by Barbara Gowdy, Stopkewich decided to write a screenplay based on the story. Gowdy later approved of the screenplay, and the rest, as they say, is history.

While preparing "Kissed" for production, the hardest thing was the casting. The adult actors were relatively easy to cast, but the child performers required for the scenes of Sandra as a child were difficult to track down, considering the film's subject matter.

When willing young actors were found and everything was in place, the production went smoothly and Stopkewich was quite pleased with the results.

Apparently so were critics everywhere, as "Kissed" has earned rave reviews and was also among five Canadian features selected for showcase at the Independent Feature Film Market in New York.

Though the success of "Kissed" with the critics has left Stopkewich stunned, she is unsure of how the general public will take the film.

"I don't think this film is cut out for everyone," Stopkewich said. "Or, I don't think everyone is cut out for this movie, I should say. I don't think you take on this kind of story without thinking that there are certain people who might walk out, or people who might be angry with you creating certain images ... But I hope they can see past that and enjoy the way the story has been told and the integrity with which it's told. And the choices that we made cinematically to tell that story. Because I tried to do everything that I could to desensationalize (necrophilia) and not exploit it."

For a story on such an outrageous subject, Stopkewich has done an excellent job at creating a movie that speaks to the very heart of the soul.

So be forewarned that "Kissed" does not contain the same subject matter found in your average romantic fluff movie. But it does contain a level of emotion that to which all audiences can relate through a passionate love story, told using the union between life and death.

Molly Parker stars in "Kissed," a love story based around necrophilia.

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