The Mind Is A Liar And A Whore

The Mind Is A Liar And A WhoreA Dark Comedy

DVD
$24.95

Product Information

Format:DVD
Discs:1
Duration:92 minutes

Description

An Astrologer, a Closet Satanist, an Inuit Opera Singer and a WebCast Diva. A typical Berkeley California household is forced indoors during an unexpected citywide lockdown initiated by the federal government. The webcast diva thinks the Feds are shifting into a fullblown police state. Her roomies think she's paranoid. Havoc and hilarity unravel as they all race to their own conclusions about what they think is happening during their current state of escalating uncertainty.

"This was my response to the tragically absurd political climate of the GWB era. Sometimes the only way to get through the hell zones is by laughing it off. And since I'm more of a laugher than a weeper, it was only natural to make a comedy, a very dark comedy."
- Antero Alli

Editorial Reviews

This film offers many of the virtues found throughout Alli's canon: subversively funny dialogue, an inventive musical score by his reel- life/real-life collaborator Sylvi Alli, and the ability to connect loose threads of intellectualism and emotions into a body of maturity and grace. The challenge of perceived and genuine threats posed in this film clearly parallels the logic that lead to the Iraqi fiasco (the phony insistence of WMD and Saddam Hussein's al-Qaeda support); it also reminds us that no one was ever arrested for the anthrax poisoning of the U.S. postal system in 2003.

Phil Hall FilmThreat (5 stars)

"The Mind is a Liar and a Whore" is the apt title for director/writer Antero Alli's entertaining and illuminating feature which uses the situation of a bio-terrorist attack in a US city to explore the many strategies which the human mind invents to cope with the uncertainties of life. A possible anthrax threat places an entire city under quarantine, forcing a household of five roommates and a boyfriend to stay locked up together, facing their fears in different ways. Smart dialogue, compassionate and perceptive character writing, a heightened sense of both the comic and dramatic potential of the situation, sharp editing, and nuanced, powerful performances all come together to lift this film from its "acting class exercise" level (throwing six characters together into a dangerous situation) into a film where comedy and drama serve as a means to explore some of the roots of what it means to be human, and live in a dangerous and unpredictable world.

David Finkelstein FilmThreat (4 stars) Read the full review

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About the Author

Antero Alli

Antero Alli is the author of Astrologik; Angel Tech: A Modern Shaman’s Guide to Reality Selection; The Eight-Circuit Brain: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body; Towards an Archeology of the Soul; The Akashic Record Player: A Non-Stop Geomantic Conspiracy; A Modern Shaman's Guide to a Pregnant Universe (with C.S. Hyatt); The Vertical Oracle (with Sylvi Pickering-Alli); and State of Emergence: Experiments in Group Ritual Dynamics. Antero is also a practicing astrologer, a prolific underground filmmaker, and an experimental theatre director.