I can't remember the last time a movie left me floored the way Karen Gehres' Begging Naked did. A buried treasure on the film festival circuit, it accomplishes so much that it's almost overwhelming. It works as a first-hand look at the sex businesses of New York City before Rudy Giuliani's "Disneyfication" of New York City. It works as a portrait of a struggling artist that lives above an elevator shaft working as a stripper. It works as a look into the life of a schizophrenic homeless person and how one can end up in such a position. But more than anything, it works as what set out to be: the recorded "autobiography" of Elise Hill, one of the most unique film subjects you will ever find, fiction or non-fiction.The film introduces us to Elise as she tells the beginning of her life story, as a runaway from an abusive household in New Jersey, hitch hiking to New York City (Making $30 in the process pulling a "trick" on her driver). After a stint in prostitution and a heroin addiction that nearly cost her her teeth, she got out of the business, into rehab and into an art school that she would fund by selling her artwork on the streets.
Most of what is described above is brought to life by Elise's storytelling, sharing aspects with an impressive frankness that helps us ease into her unique world. Her living quarters are insanely cramped and cluttered, to the point that her mother broke down on her only visit there in shock of the conditions her daughter was living in. Not that Elise cares. The place and the connecting roof both work well enough as a place for her to work on her dolls, sculptures and paintings, though she would also work on her paintings at her place of work, the infamous New York City strip club Show World.
It is in this section of the film, where Elise shares of her experiences at Show World, that the film's dimensions truly begin to become apparent. As someone that recently volunteered on sound for a Vagina Monologues production, I have become interested as to why few films explore the explicit side of women's sexuality in a deep and thoughtful manner, and in this section Begging Naked does well in filling this void. Gehres makes the smart choice of never showing any film footage of what goes on in Show World, instead allowing us to observe the world through Elise's own recollections and beautifully explicit drawings, portraying everything from a "Face Dance" to a "Buck in the Butt," all explained eagerly by Elise. While the film never glamourizes the profession, there's still so much to cover on this subject that it wasn't surprising to learn that Gehres was already considering making a film entirely out of the idea of a 32-year-old woman re-entering this profession, the way Elise did.Yet life has an odd way of throwing even more curveballs, as Giuliani moved forward in zoning the hell out of the smuttier side of NYC, eventually leading to the loss of Elise's job. And while there was likely no cause/effect going on, it is also around this time that Elise began to show a losing grip of reality, casually discussing the chip planted in her brain by the government that relays all of her thoughts to a super-computer, among other worrying things. From here things only begin to go downhill, as she stops paying the rent, runs into legal trouble, and in one of the hardest to watch scenes of any film in recent memory, she is evicted from her apartment, the entire event caught on camera, as Elise, so calm and lively early on, finally begins to lose it. It was later revealed during the Q&A that the footage was shot not by Gehres but by her partner at the time, because Gehres was out of town. Gehres herself is not sure she could have captured the scene the way it is now, as she couldn't even watch the footage herself for a while.
But alas, rereading what I have written so far I am reminded of some of Roger Ebert's Great Movies essays, where he will synopsize for a while before apologizing for not getting more into what makes the movie work. It is hard to truly put into words where the power of this film comes from, especially without spoiling it for others. I myself had read the website's description of Elise's life story before seeing the film, but the deeper and deeper I got into the story, what I had read beforehand began to matter less and less.
By the time it had reached its end, I remained still, contimplating what I had just watched. It wasn't until film critic Lisa Rosman walked out with Gehres, and began the Q&A by thanking her for giving us this film, that I lost it. As I began welling up quietly, I realized that whatI had just watched really was something special. It is the story of a woman whose story runs close to so many out there (The teenage runaway, the struggling artist, the homeless schizophrenic), yet is truly unique in her own right. And to be told in a manner that is almost painfully personal but never manipulative...it truly is moving, something that you rarely find in this medium. But when you do, it can be one of the happiest accidents anyone can find.
Take any chance you can to see this film. I'm not sure I will find a more satisfying film experience this year.
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