A pallid drip of a film, Jean-Claude Brisseau's The Girl from Nowhere has it all wrong. This mysterious girl, Dora, does not come from nowhere. She comes from a troubling but interesting history, and has ended up nowhere. Brisseau's Paris apartment, to be correct, but it might as well be nowhere. Was there ever anything to be said for just putting a camera somewhere, waving a wand and hoping some magic happens? The end result has the vibe of uncertainty. The actors don't seem fully comfortable with their characters just yet. It's like they all were in a big hurry to make the film, and had to settle for competent read-throughs rather than developed performances. As the two stand together in their main room, dolled up like a cheap office party, looking like a pair of goats, all gormless and out-of-place, the instinct would be to laugh. The preceding 80 minutes have dulled the senses, though, like a placid barbiturate, so you have my respect if you can muster up even that little cynicism. Artsy flourishes dribble in from time to time, and the obsession with psychology and spiritualism that insidiously pervades this film doesn't give it the colour it's supposed to - it only makes it more inaccessible. Brisseau's expectation that his homeless PYT will be just as savvy on the history of religion, mythology and psychoanalysis as he is makes for one of The Girl from Nowhere's more galling attributes. She appears to be there as boner fodder, but only for himself. It's a wonder he doesn't have a permanent trouser bugle. Him and Woody Allen. Maybe they're both just too old now. I hereby publicly recommend The Girl from Nowhere to everyone I hate.
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