Movie Review: "Holy Smoke"

Directed by: Jane Campion 

Starring:  Kate Winslet,

Harvey Keitel,

Pam Grier,

Julie Hamilton,

Sophie Lee,

Daniel Wyllie,

Paul Goddard,

Tim Robertson 

Released: 1999 

Language: English 

Length: 114 minutes

It has been said that Femdom is a battle of the minds where the woman enforces her will on her eager male partner. In this battle of wills, often the weapons that the female incorporates are sexual in nature. As much as a man may fantasize about a woman forcing him into submission via physical domination, the reality is that the battle for control between a woman and a man is rarely about the physical. The dominant female wins control in the mental and spiritual by capitalizing on the male’s weakness in the sexual. To put it candidly, sex gives the female the power.

“Holy Smoke” is a film about the battle of wills between a macho male and a young, free-spirited woman. In the end, the physically stronger macho male is reduced to a pathetic shell of his former self by the sexuality of a strong-willed woman.  

In the film, Ruth (Kate Winslet) is a young girl from Australia on holiday with her friends in India. Here she is free from family and social constraint and is attracted to the exoticism of this foreign country. She did not set out on the trip to find enlightenment, but Ruth is obviously in search of something more, because in due time she is mesmerized by a guru of some exotic religion in a tent gathering. Ruth is fascinated with the ritual and falls into a sort of trance when touched by the guru.  

This early scene is depicted satirically in the film by director Jane Campion. A medium close-up of a stupefied Ruth staring blankly forward with a backdrop of brightly glowing yellow light with pulsating graphics floating around her head gives the impression of a stereotypical New Age experience. The movie is part drama and part comedy therefore it does venture into the realm of silliness at times but while, in my opinion, the comedy is weak, the drama between Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel is really good. Winslet brings just the right tone in portraying a naïve and vulnerable girl who is also independent, confident and wise beyond her years.  

The plot is really a feminist parable. Written with Jane Campion's filmmaker sister Anna, "Holy Smoke" begins as a satire of the whole guru trip but moves swiftly to a bold struggle between a macho man and a strong-willed woman. The moment Ruth and P.J. face off against each other, their struggle is not over cult beliefs, but about the battle between men and women. And P.J. is no match for Ruth. 

Entering wearing all black from head to toe, the self-confident P.J. boasts of the 189 successful de-programmings. Ruth’s parents have hired him to deprogram Ruth. She is in effect taken prisoner by her own kin to be transported to an isolated cabin in the outback where P.J. is to do his stuff. However, P.J. has his work cut out for him with Ruth.

 

 

 

 

Ruth is smart and forthright, quite up to sparring with P.J. on intellectual and spiritual levels. Ruth is also young, radiantly beautiful, statuesque in her glowing abundance; the cumulative impact of all these qualities upon P.J. is understandably and, not surprisingly, ultimately and profoundly seductive. Ruth's war on P.J.'s machismo, much to his surprise, stirs within him the curiosity to go wherever she wants to take him.

 

Left alone with Ruth, things for P.J. quickly deteriorate. His weakness is his sexual desire and how that feeds his ego and machismo. The process of 'breaking' young women like Ruth (his job supplies him with many opportunities) gives him a great sense of power. Usually it is only psychological, but in the case of Ruth his desire gets the better of him. 
 

At first, Ruth despises P.J. and resists him tooth and nail. However, the self-confident P.J. succeeds in getting Ruth to question her blind-faith in following the teachings of the guru. After watching a video about the dangers of blind allegiance to a cult, Ruth burns her cult clothing and stands naked in the desert outside the cabin. When P.J. investigates the source of the fire, he is taken by Ruth’s beauty but he resists her attempt to kiss him. P.J. knows from his past experiences that a ‘client’ is emotionally vulnerable once their belief system is shattered. That is why P.J. usually works with a partner in order to eliminate temptations when working with a female client, however in Ruth’s case, P.J. throws caution to the wind, a sign of his arrogance that he is above giving into temptation.  
 

P.J. likes to think he is ethical but his ethics are put to the test when the naked Ruth attempts to embrace him. At first, he successfully resists her advances, but Ruth uses a psychological ploy to throw P.J. off his game. Ruth urinates in front of P.J, standing upright in a manner which a woman might administer a golden shower. P.J. is shocked at this display but when Ruth tries to kiss him again, her legs wet with urine, P.J. loses the will to resist and he gives into his sexual desires. We next see P.J. fucking Ruth with Ruth admonishing the macho male “don’t cum”. And with that, Ruth begins to play on the aging macho male’s sexual insecurities. 
 

Ruth casts an equally powerful spell on P.J. as her guru did on her. This is clearly illustrated in the seduction sequence where the old blues tune "I Put a Spell on You" plays in the background in a bar they are at. Ruth is dancing and playing mind games with P.J. After having sex with her, P.J. is smitten with Ruth but she dances with other men and women at the bar. P.J. plays the father-figure in lecturing Ruth about getting drunk, but Ruth ignores him and orders him to get her another drink. Ruth dances provocatively with one of her female friends, embracing her and passionately kissing her. P.J. looks on with jealousy in his eyes.
 

 

 

Ruth also allows a group of males to fondle her in the back of the bar. P.J. flexes his machismo by forcefully removing her from the situation.
 

Back at the cabin, P.J.'s self-assured façade completely disintegrates. He wants to make love to Ruth again but Ruth toys with him. She tells him that his performance in bed was sub par and she offers to teach him how to properly kiss a woman. P.J. tries to regain the upper hand by bragging to Ruth how he was once married to an attractive supermodel and has lots of experience with women. But Ruth continues to attack his sexual insecurities and P.J. gives in and allows Ruth to teach him how to kiss as if he is a virgin male.

Then Ruth pushes P.J. to his knees and raises her skirt. She commands P.J. to go down on her, again instructing him how to do it, as if he were an inexperienced virgin and not a worldly man. Earlier in the movie we see Ruth’s sex-crazed and bored sister-in-law going down on P.J. We get the idea that P.J. is accustomed to getting sexual favors from women who are attracted to his macho demeanor. Yet Ruth turns the tables and has P.J. go down on her. Ruth, of course, does not return the favor.  
 

Ruth continues to play head games with P.J., telling him he is too old for her, that he was not very good in bed, that only weak women would succumb to his sexual advances, and she uses his desire to have sex with her in order to break him down to the point that he will do anything she says. The power role reversal becomes complete when Ruth begins to feminize P.J.  Ruth puts lipstick on P.J. and makes him wear a red cocktail dress, and the macho male gladly submits, losing his male pride and ego in the process.  
 

P.J. craves her attention, any attention, thus to him being feminized by Ruth is a pleasant experience because it involves a form of sexuality. The camera shows us what P.J. sees as Ruth applies the lipstick and he is awestruck by her beauty and her determination. 
 

P.J. is feminized, emasculated and humiliated by Ruth. She even apologizes to P.J. about being so cruel and heartless toward him. P.J. answers back that he loves being abused by her and would gladly submit to her cruel and heartless ways.

 

 

 

There is a lot of truth in this scene as most men would gladly submit to being abused by a woman because the abuse strips them of their machismo and at the end of the day, the macho ways of men like P.J. are nothing but a false façade. Jane Campion preaches a subtle point of truth here, and that point of truth is that most men would gladly submit to a little abuse and cruelty from a strong woman because there is something within the male gender that desires to be dominated by the female gender. Machismo is a defense mechanism to protect the fragile male ego.  
 

Be that as it may, Ruth is not far enough in her growth as a woman to understand the whys and the hows when it comes to female domination and male submission. Therefore, she is confused as to why she has acted so unkind toward P.J., and thus we get a glimpse into why Ruth was drawn to the guru. She mistook her strong personality with selfishness and her journey to India was her quest to find meaning. She wanted to be perceived as being a kind person and the cult fulfilled that need within her. However, the family intervention and isolation with P.J. made her confront the real truth about her nature, as well as the battle between the sexes. Ruth is indeed capable of kindness but she is also by nature a dominant woman and she takes the interaction with P.J. as a challenge. There is a scene when after P.J. is feminized, Ruth bounces around the bedroom proclaiming “I won, I won” and she essentially makes P.J. confess that she is superior to him.
 

The final scenes of a psychologically devastated P.J. in lipstick and red dress are meant to show him as pathetic and Ruth as victorious. Deep down Ruth likes P.J. but she knows she doesn’t want him to be a part of her future, yet P.J. cannot accept it. P.J. has to have Ruth in his life and when Ruth ultimately rejects him, he goes running after her across the desert as he can’t bear the thought of life without her. When Ruth slaps him away, P.J. loses control of his emotions and hits Ruth, blooding her nose. Finally in total exhaustion, P.J. is lying in the desert, dirty, bloody, having lost all of his dignity. In the horizon, he has a vision of Ruth as a Hindu God. The feeling we get is a depiction of feminist triumph over machismo. 

 

 

 

I believe the movie was meant to end with the scene of P.J.’s vision of Ruth. However, someone (I seriously doubt it was Campion or her sister) made the mistake of adding two additional final scenes. We see P.J. riding in the back of Ruth’s brother’s pick-up truck, totally defeated, and Ruth has her brother stop the truck so she can climb into the back with the broken man. Ruth comforts him, showing him (and more importantly her self) that she indeed is capable of kindness, demonstrating the dual female nature of dominance and nurturing. I could have accepted this alternate ending but the producers had to go for one final scene to soften the feminist imagery of the film and bring it down for a safe mainstream landing.  
 

The movie ends with one of those “one year later” scenes to show Ruth and P.J. as “pen-pal friends who love each other from a distance” as P.J. is happily married with newborn twins and Ruth is back in India with her mother doing charitable work. They should have left well enough alone and stayed with the original ending, in my opinion, but I guess the producers struggled to find an ending where both characters come across as winners in this unique portrayal of the battle of the sexes.  
 

Nonetheless, I enjoyed “Holy Smoke”. The psychological clash between Ruth and P.J. will appeal to those who read my blog because it accurately portrays the power a sexual woman has over a man, no matter how tough or rugged that man may seem on the outside. Yes, it is a feminist parable but I believe it is also a Femdom parable. While not perfect (the comedy didn’t work for me), overall I definitely recommend this film. I caught it on the IFC (Independent Film Channel). I’m sure it will be on again in the near future. 

 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars