KISS NAPOLEON GOODBYE opens with a written preface about a king and his dog from Amsterdam some time in 1808, and then about our modern concerns of a woman and her husband who move away from their worldly affairs to find peace in a plantation - perhaps in the same building the King of Netherlands lived? Neal (Don Bajema) has some jealousy issues to work out and Hedda (Lydia Lunch) wants to work on their relationship to rekindle their sexual appetite for one another.

Our film is of Hedda and her husband in a large house. Neal is pushing open doors down the hall screaming Heddas name, only to see her gardening outside from the upstairs window.

Don then goes outside with his 3 dogs and plays with them and Hedda playfully sprays water from the hose on him. All appears well and they flirt with each other in their large vacant playground. Once things seem to be going in their favor, ready to become more intimate, the phone rings. And who happens to call? Jackson (Henry Rollins), Hedda’s ex-boyfriend. To make things worse, Hedda invites him over.

Don is the least bit happy and when Jackson shows up, he is all the more angry. Hedda, tries to suggest to Don that its nothing and no big deal, yet she is parading around the house is less and less clothes in front of Don and Jackson, and her intentions move closer to Jackson and further from Don. This not only aggravates Don’s jealousy, but it also kicks in Jackson’s own defensiveness as he feels little pity for Don and does not respect their relationship. The two get into various rifts and struggles, both verbally and physically, while Hedda seems to watch to see what happens. Little does she know she is bringing this whole situation on (or maybe she does know, just wants some drama in her life).

Apart from the story, there is some strange symbolic moments, where we see a naked woman who is dripping from her crotch onto a burning pan between her legs. Interesting imagery, but I am not sure what it's trying to tell me. Listed in the credits is performance artist Maria van Heeswijk, so its very likely this is like a movie set around various performance and media artists.

If you are familiar with some of the New York Underground films of the 90’s with Nick Zedd and Richard Kern, or even the Warhol films of the 60's and 70's, you might feel at home with this movie. Everything about it screams New York with the exception of location, which was shot in the Netherlands by director Babeth (and written by both Babeth and Lydia). There is a peculiar style and feel of those New York films, mostly what I can tell is the acting is so overt that, it is as if no one know hows to hide any emotions and so they just let their emotions out right there in front of everyone. I find this peculiar to New York style and no where else. Even back in the 70’s with Abel Ferrera’s DRILLER KILLER (also available from Cult Epics) has this overt, over the top style of acting where the only sort of costume these actors don are the character names, but everything else is the real person.

The film runs at 32-minutes and it seems to do a quick spiral out of control once Jackson shows up at the door. There is a logic that soon loses the audience grip in place of metaphor or symbolism that is not all together clear. While the thrust of the action revolves around the threesome falling apart, there are other things going on that are not directly related. I am not saying this takes away the pleasure of the film, but it does challenge the audience as to what some of it means.

KISS NAPOLEON GOODBYE is released by Cult Epics and overall is a decent transfer. If I had any complaints, I would say the sound is a bit low and muffled at times. The picture quality could have been sharpened a little, but given the rare material, it is comepletely watchable in as it is. Strange, however, there is no IMDB listing for this title, so there is little history about the film. Some more background info would be more welcome. What we do know is that the film was filmed in 1990 and commissioned by Else Hoek as part of an art-project that premiered in The Netherlands in 1990 and screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 1991.

The remainder of the disc is a 50-minute documentary ttiles “Paradoxia & A Predator’s Diary”. This is basically an up-front look at Lydia Lunch, the poet and spoken word artist. She puts out her philosophies on the table without any apologies. Thats what I like about her. I do not think I agree with her, but I must admit she has provoked within me a strong enough emotion to dislike what she says, and to me that is a good thing. She may feel we live in a corrupt, male-dominated world, but as a corrupt dominant male, I feel she is just paranoid.

The video itself is a mixed bag of interviews, excerpts of performances and other various tidbits of her live and yelling with improvisational music channeled from her own words. If you have seen her spoken word performances before, you will get a nice charge from this. Rounding out the disc is a short excerpt from “It’s A Man’s World”, a live bootleg performance. It is only 5-minutes in length, which is a little disappointing. The entire disc runs at 95 minutes total and all the segments are direceted by Babeth Mondini-VanLoo. Although the film was not shot in New York, it would certainly be a must for those who like New York underground art films. KISS NAPOLEON GOODBYE is set for release on January 27th. 

For more information about this title and others, visit the Cult Epics website.