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Goto: Island of Love
is about three things: dogs, flies, and boots. That’s all you need to
know. What? You require a little something more from a movie review?
Well, alrighty then…
 In 1969, Polish animator Walerian Borowczyk (of The Beast
fame) first tried his hand at a feature-length live-action film. And,
unless you are an idiot, you have probably figured out that Goto is that
film. Now instead of paraphrasing the plot for you, I’m going to quote the
liner-note summary verbatim, mostly because most of what it says happens
doesn’t actually happen:
Goto, Island of Love is set on a legendary island cut off from the
rest of the world in the 1800s by a series of natural disasters. On Goto,
there is no art, no science, all inhabitants toil under the savage reign
of their cruel ruler, Goto III (Pierre Brasseur). When Goto’s wife,
Glyssia (sensuous Ligia Branice), saves a man, Grozo (played by Guy
Saint-Jean), from execution she has her husband hire him as the island’s
chief flycatcher and dog walker. Grozo longs for Glyssia and his jealousy
sets the stage for a love-fueled coup.
Issue the first: Glossia (as she is known in the subtitles) doesn’t save
anybody. Grozo punks out of a fight-to-the-death punishment and hides in
her skirt. Issue the second: Goto III (who doesn’t really seem like such a
bad guy, except for his propensity for promoting the archaic Gotoian
lifestyle of the 1800s)
hires Grozo as the dog-keeper/fly-catcher/boot-cleaner’s assistant. Grozo
later murders the head guy and becomes chief
dog-keeper (there was no walking of the dogs, although there was feeding)/
fly-catcher (there are a hell of a lot of flies on Goto, probably due to
the fact that the island is filthy)/ boot-cleaner (again, Goto is a dirty
place). Issue the third: Glossia is having an
affair with the island’s resident horse-trainer, and the two of them are
plotting to escape the wretched island. It’s kind of an important plot
point. Issue the fourth: actually, I have no issue with the last
statement. Grozo does long for Glossia, and his
jealousy does, in fact, set the stage for a love-fueled coup.
Filmed in black and white with a few dramatic colour sequences, Goto is a
beautiful film. Arty as hell, if you want to know the truth. It is violent
and absurd, the cinematography is grainy and gorgeous, and the story is
compelling, if a little odd. The colour
sequences are all flashes of red (raw meat, a bucket of blood, Glossia’s
shoe) that work to reinforce the film’s underlying themes of humanity’s
base desires, the decay of society, and the struggle of the common man to
rise above the restrictions placed on him by
said society. Dogs…flies…boots…get it? (Oh yeah, there is a pretty cool
scene with a bunch of prostitutes taking public baths in a brothel, but if
you’re looking for something brainless to masturbate to, you’d be better
off renting something else. If you’re a film student, however, you’ll
probably wet yourself.)
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