Atom Egoyan is a man who will soon win an Academy Award for Best Director in the next few years. After seeing The Sweet Hereafter, I rented Exotica, having heard that it's the best, if not his most signature piece of work- and WHAT a movie- this movie doesn't let you get away with falling asleep, loosing concentration, or anything like that. It makes you THINK, forces you to go scene by scene in a way that is utterly spellbinding. The nudity is a little shocking at first but dealing with its subject matter, for the 'art', so to speak, it's understandable. One of the best films of 1994, without a doubt.
The way that Egoyan intermingles different symbols, cuts back and forth through time, uses repeated imagery, and, at some points, holds back with severely limited dialogue, paints films that capture what it's like to live and remember and be alive. We watch the film, not knowing throughout the whole thing at least 80% of what the hell is going on during the scene, because we understand that the film is a kind of puzzle that'll be pieced together with time. That sense of unknowing- not knowing everything about the characters, not knowing everything, just yet, of what's happening- makes Egoyan's films, and certainly Exotica, some of the most mentally stimulately movies in cinematic history.
All in all Egoyan should of won Best Director in 1997, not Cameron, and this film definately deserved a best screenplay nod in 1994. I'll leave you with a potent piece of dialouge from the film, via Bruce Greedwood and Sarah Polley-
"Tracey- do you ever get the feeling that you didn't ask to be here on earth?"
"What?"
"I mean- no one ASKED that we be brought here. So the question is- who's asking us to stay?"
