Exotica
Exotica
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1h 43m
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1994 • Canada
Starring Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, Elias Koteas
One of the defining independent films of the 1990s, Atom Egoyan’s mesmerizing international breakthrough EXOTICA takes the conventions of the psychological thriller into bold new territory—unsettling, dreamlike, and empathetic. At the neon-drenched Toronto strip club of the film’s title, a coterie of lost and damaged souls—including a man haunted by grief, a young woman with whom he shares an enigmatic bond, an obsessive emcee, and a smuggler of rare bird eggs—search for redemption as they work through the traumas of their mysteriously interconnected histories in an obsessive cycle of sex, pain, jealousy, and catharsis. Masterfully weaving together past and present, Egoyan constructs a spellbinding narrative puzzle, the full emotional impact of which doesn’t hit until the last piece is in place.
Up Next in Exotica
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EXOTICA Commentary
This commentary track, recorded in 2012, features director Atom Egoyan and composer Mychael Danna.
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EXOTICA at Cannes, 1994
EXOTICA premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. The following audio excerpts from the film’s press conference there feature director Atom Egoyan, actors Bruce Greenwood and Arsinée Khanjian, and producer Camelia Frieberg.
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Atom Egoyan and Sarah Polley on EXOTICA
The following conversation between director Atom Egoyan and actor and filmmaker Sarah Polley was recorded in Toronto in June 2022.
