I recently watched all the classic John Waters films, having only watched Pink Flamingoes previously. Even if ‘Pink Flamingos’ is the most famous, filthiest and notorious film by cinemas “filth elder”, it’s definitely not the funniest!
I was pleasantly surprised to discover the rest of his work. The one I peronally liked best was actually ‘Polyester’. There is no scenes here that is as shocking as when Divine eats real dog shit in ‘PF’ or gets raped by a giant lobster in ‘Mondo Trasho’.. (Divine is of course the drag queen, starring in many of Water’s films). I guess only hearing about such scenes might be enough for people to want to check out the films. Waters used another gimmick to create buzz and renew the viewing experience with ‘Polyester’. It was filmed in what Waters called odorama; the people that attended ‘Polyester’ in the cinema were given a card that you could scratch and sniff during the film. Numbers flashes onscreen indicating when to scratch n’ sniff. Basically, you could sit there and smell the atrocities that was going on onscreen. Fun, huh?
Not really, but the funniest scenes in the film are these moments were Divine starts sniffing around like a dog, trying to locate these odors. I don’t think I’ve seen a film as funny this in ages. Divine plays Francine Fishpaw, a tortured and alcoholic mother. Everything just goes wrong in her life; devastating things happen to her in each and every scene of the film. It’s just great humour watching this hysterical, obese mother (which really is a drag queen) running around trying to keep her life together.. It might not be for everyone, but I constantly laughed with tears in my eyes during this great, GREAT little trash flick.
Jeff Garlin produced the documentary ‘This Filthy World’, which is a nice introduction. Although, I’m not sure if I would like to call it a documentary, it’s just Waters talking about his films onstage. Like stand-up maybe.. It’s quite entertaining, seeing that Waters is a very amusing old man. I would like to recommend it to anyone who dares to discover the work of cinemas beloved “filth elder”, the true master of bad taste.
