Camera Obscura’s ‘Virtue’

by Michael Flanagan

“We’rein the middle of the most profound technological event to hit humanity since the capture of fire. Is fire a good thing or a bad thing?”

— John Perry Barlow,

in “Virtue”

The late 1990s were a period of massive change, both technologically and culturally. In the face of that change, filmmaker Camera Obscura’s “Virtue” comes to us like a latter day version of James Whale’s “Frankenstein” to assure us that indeed, “Fire bad!”

The film follows Hundée, who loses her husband in an autoerotic accident early in the film while he is watching virtual porn on VR goggles. Her search for a virtual substitute to her husband (a “man-chip” as she calls it) leads her into the world of VR chip pusher Trip (Phillip R. Ford) and his supplier Dr. Pluto (Timmy Spence).

Notably the film casts “real world” events in black and white while scenes seen through the VR goggles are in color. It’s also worth noting that the black and white world that the film depicts is the hollowed out South of Market area (hollowed out at the time because of the death and bankruptcy that followed many dur ing the AIDS crisis). One of the VR addicts in the film lives in a makeshift home under the freeway, which has a dystopian ring to it but hits rather close to reality, and points out that our current housing crisis has been with us for some time.

Prescient but panned

The film was not well received when it was initially released. Peter Stack accused the film of being “essen tially a form of voyeurism” and called it a “virtual mess.”

In 1999, The Examiner’s Wesley

Morris wrote that the film conservatively imparts that “perhaps all that’s available in a techno culture is Dgrade porn and phantasmagoria.”

Perhaps the naiveté of the reviewers is explainable when you remember that X-rated streaming vendors like Xtube weren’t online until the middle of the decade after the film was released, so perhaps they believed the internet would be not be used for porn as much as it is in the film. If they believed this, they were wrong. A 2018 Business Insider article pointed out that porn sites were accessed more that Twitter, Netflix or Wikipedia.

Admittedly, the phantasmagoria elements are a bit difficult to take, and I did have to glance away at some of the more graphic surgical and piercing scenes. But it is important to remember that this film happened in the midst of the “Modern Primitive” era, which makes this element a bit more understandable.

The cast is amazing and includes the late Arturo Galster as Patsy Cline, Miss X as an assistant to Trip in the VR den, Deena Davenport as a VR Wait

Rarely-seen cautionary tale at the Roxie

a discussion that will also include Leigh Crow (Elvis Herselvis), Phillip R. Ford, Lu Read (Fudgie Frottage), Alvin Orloff, Beth Custer, R.U. Sirius and others.

I recently interviewed Camera Obscura for the June 5 showing of the film.

Michael Flanagan: I’m wondering about the set of the club where Phillip R. Ford as Trip and Timmy Spence as Dr. Pluto meet. Was that an actual club and if so where was it filmed?

Camera Obscura: Yes, that was filmed in the back room at DNA Lounge. The Star Spangled Banner scene was filmed at The Marsh in the Mission. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence scene was filmed at Club Townsend.

There are a number of local luminaries in the film including members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Miss X, Alvin Orloff and Elvis Herselvis/Leigh Crow. Were there performances around the time of the filming that you found inspirational?

Oh my gosh, yes! These people were diving into their own humanity and exploring, with great detail and inquisitiveness, every nook and cranny, no matter how divergent from the mainstream. It was so incredibly liberating and inspiring! They led the community in modeling how life is lived with joy, humor and authenticity.

What was perhaps more inspiring than individual performers was how the city itself supported a network of clubs that were spaces into this creative exploration. Club Uranus, the EndUp, Pleasuredome, Colossus, the Eagle, the Stud, DV8, Klubstitute; I mean, the list goes on and on. The scene itself was the inspiration.

At the time the film was released, there were reviews in both the Examiner and the Chronicle and neither of them seemed to understand the film. Do you think that’s because they just didn’t understand non-narrative structure or was it because they logical changes happening at the time that they couldn’t hear a dystopian voice?

I’m sure it’s because they had no clue how much our lives and society would be so comprehensively disrupted by digital technology. Like everyone else, they believed all the sales pitches that technology would somehow “empower” us, “level the playing field,” “democratize” society and give us more leisure time.

I remember sitting in the back of the cinema as the audience was filing out at the end of the movie, and I could hear people mumbling, in very superior tones, things like, “How ridiculous. That could never happen,” “No need to demonize technology. It’s just a tool,” and “Those goggles are just plain silly.” Well, well, well! Look who’s the silly one now!

‘Virtue,’ June 5, 6:30pm at The Roxie, 3125 16th St. Free (members)-$10. www.roxie.com/ film/virtue

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