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Strange Culture DVD Review: Tilda Swinton Doomed By Terror Politics

By Prairie Miller  

Lynn Hershman Leeson's Strange Culture is a tightly woven mix of dramatic sequences and truth is stranger than fiction documentary. The product of this fusion, a kind of strange science fiction, could not be more fitting during this period marked by the erosion the often ridiculous hysterics of terrorism phobia.

Leeson specifically explores the ongoing real life case of social activist SUNY Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz, and his intended mounting of an an exhibit at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art probing genetically modified foods today. On May 11th, 2004, just before the opening, Kurtz's wife Hope, played here by Tilda Swinton, suddenly met an untimely, initially undetermined death in her sleep.

The medics who arrived on the scene took note of the various biological specimens and paraphernalia Kurtz was assembling for his exhibit, and they called in the FBI to investigate. Agents in hazmat suits stormed the premises along with a media circus, confiscating everything from computers and what was determined to be a mysterious postcard announcing a Middle Eastern art performance, to the family cat and even Hope's corpse.

Kurtz, who was denied the space to mourn the loss of his wife, let alone claim her body, was subsequently charged with terrorism, and has been dragged into court repeatedly over the course of the next four years. He was eventually cleared at least of possible murder charges, when Hope was declared to have died of natural causes. There is also a hardly unfounded implication throughout the reenactment of this Kakaesque ordeal, that the corporate interests with a huge economic stake in genetic food engineering, may be having undue influence on this travesty of justice.

Because Kurtz's case remains ongoing, Leeson created a scenario in Strange Culture where more sensitive issues are discussed by actors instead. Thomas Jay Ryan, already immortalized in the annals of cinema as Hal Hartley's Henry Fool, fills in here at those sensitive hot topic moments, as the affable Steve Kurtz, with a memorable performance that resonates both emotionally and politically. And Tilda Swinton makes all too brief but striking appearances in flashbacks as the unfortunate Hope.

Peter Coyote is cast as Kurtz's colleague and co-defendant Dr. Robert Ferrell, former chair of the genetics department at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Both men potentially face a sentence of twenty years for federal mail and wire fraud. That is, after the terrorism case fell apart and the Feds scrambled for replacement charges to presumably save face.

But Kurtz himself pops into the action at all the right moments as a reality check against complacency, and a timely wakeup call - his own '5/11' as he terms his personal nightmare - to remind us just how dangerous and threatening an overzealous government can be right now, towards its own people.

Docurama Films
4 stars
Unrated

DVD Features: Filmmaker Interviews; Outtakes; Filmmaker Biography; Theatrical Trailer.
Information about the trial is at: http://www.caedefensefund.org

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com