Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! [1965]

July 31, 2009

While we are at Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino (Planet Terror and Death Proof), here’s a movie that influenced them greatly. Faster Pussycat Kill Kill is full of sex, violence, and cheesy plot twists. John Waters called it: beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made, with many other accolades following. However, the beginning was bumpy, with both critics and viewers hating the movie for its simplistic and highly sexual premise. This is an exploitation movie, actually a sexploitation movie to be more precise. This means that the movie is looking to “exploit” current and past trends to make money.

Whether this is the fascination with Nazi Germany, sex, women, prisons, death, or any other concept that can be manipulated and monetized, the choice is solely in the hands of the director. Russ Meyer, director of this movie is somewhat of a cult figure with his military style of filming and a lot of movies under his belt. He remained active for three decades, shooting his last movie Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens in 1979. Of course, his most popular movie is Faster Pussycat Kill Kill. This is a movie with titillating scenes featuring three ladies with big boobs and even bigger cleavages. However, it’s also a movie without any nudity.

You might wonder why movies like this featuring extremely simplistic stories, bad acting, and controversial topics like sex, nudity, rape, and murder, became popular. Of course, the answer is obvious, these were not soft-core porn movies nor there were fully fledged movies. They were something in between. This enabled them to fill the almost non-existent niche. The whole thing started back in the twenties, but the hippie revolution of the sixties along with the availability of filming equipment and general acceptance of movies as both forms of exploration and entertainment.

These movies featured unrealistic visions of reality, warped in a way that allows the creators to use whatever topic they selected, whether it would be a killer motorcycle gang or lustful wives. This experimentation with the “official system of values” resonated well with newer generations and these movies gained cult status. You have to remember that at this time people were finally able to express themselves after two world wars and a strong governmental hand. But, I digress, let’s get back to the movie at hand.

Billie, Rosie, and Varla are three go-go dancers living their life to the fullest. They decided to do a bit of drag racing and after an unfortunate incident that left her boyfriend dead, they decide to kidnap his girlfriend Linda. Soon, they meet an elderly, disabled gentleman and his muscular but dumb son. Seeing easy money and cock, they approach them, much to the enjoyment of this dynamic duo…

I felt oddly inspired after watching this movie so I almost forgot to mention its main star, Tura Satana. Now, she’s a real deal, a woman who didn’t take any shit from men and actually had her own gang. She didn’t let horrific events from her childhood prevent her from being authentic, creative, and just an all-around badass. Badass who owned rights to her image and likeness.

In today’s age of fake tits, lips, asses, and all the other body parts, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill is very refreshing. I have to admit that these raw and highly sensual shots of almost nudity are much more titillating and exhilarating than today’s porno or similar movies. Same as Coffy, an example of blaxploitation cinema. However, this is where things are starting to take a turn towards the unknown, and soon enough you will be lost in a sea of symbolism.

Defined by Sigmund Freud, some forty years earlier, psychoanalysis is now in full swing. Everyone uses it for money and power. Freud uncovered hidden parts of the human psyche, hidden only by the ruling class. Perhaps not of ignorance, but of fear and ease to control the masses. If you use Freud’s methods to unravel what the fuck is going on in this movie, strange things start to happen. Even Roger Ebert, a famous film critic, who actually worked with Russ on a couple of movies takes note of this:

Meyer’s extraordinary women are of course fascinating to those with breast fetishes, but look a little longer and you will notice that the breasts are not always presented as centers of desire. Instead, they’re weapons used to intimidate men. Tura Satana, who plays the lead in “Faster, Pussycat,” is extraordinary in appearance: Her makeup, with its slashes of Kabuki-style eyebrows, looks terrifying. Her black costume seems suited to a motorcycle gang. She never smiles. And her abundant cleavage seems as firmly locked in place as a Ninja Turtle’s breastplate. One cannot think of her as fondleable.
Roger Ebert

If you add male power, death, and sexual drives to the whole thing, what appears is something truly original. A documentary of human behavior and desires, unfettered by external forces. I also want to add that this entire text has been written under the influence of another documentary. I’m talking about Adam Curtis’s groundbreaking masterpiece The Century of Self. I urge you to check it out. In the end, a friendly warning, do not fast forward the movie to see another cool scene. It’s much more fun to use the idling for deep reflection and psychoanalysis.