Mine

Cindy, the Doll Is Mine - dir. Bertrand Bonello - 2005 - France

I suppose, with me, it was bound to happen. It was bound to happen that Asia Argento's power over me would become uncontrollable... and with Bertrand Bonello's short, Cindy: The Doll Is Mine, it's happened. Within the past two months, I've probably watched more of Ms. Argento's films than most have seen in their entire life, and while I have have gotten frustrated around the time I saw Tony Gatlif's Transylvania, it all changed with Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate. A lot of people, myself included, may suggest that Ms. Argento isn't exactly the most capable of actresses, but in my book, that means nothing now. Any detractor of her "acting ability" obviously hasn't seen this, and even if you had, you don't understand the appeal. Argento is like Grace Jones to me: this utterly fascinating persona of media personality... one we've never seen in quite such a way before. Here, she plays both artist Cindy Sherman and model Cindy Sherman, to the most effective of extents, examining what, perhaps, it truly is to be artist and subject. Bonello (Tiresia) received support from Sherman herself, but is that so surprising? Is Cindy: The Doll Is Mine not just the perfect extension of Sherman's self portraiture? Does it not become even more fascinating seeing someone else interpret this...? (Much more so than Sherman's own directorial debut Office Killer) And is Argento not the perfectly molded subject to convey this? I officially have a woman of my dreams, and I just hope she stops acting in her father's films.