I've been meaning to watch Girl on a Motorcycle (aka Naked Under Leather), mostly since the Triumph basket case has consumed our lives and I'm preparing my role as a female biker. From the trailer, I went into it expecting more-or-less soft-core porn, but what surprised me was the insistent psychedelic art-film quality. The movie opens up with Rebecca dreaming of riding a circus horse while her master—like, a male mistress—whips her until her clothes fall off (she enjoys this waaay too much). The colors are blown-out orange and magenta, the edits are bizarre, and there's a distant distorted carnival melody playing in the distance. Weird. Kinky. This kind of thing happens a lot.
The movie is mostly her riding around, narrating her thoughts and making weird faces to express said thoughts. (Her crazy face... is crazy ugly.) She is constantly talking in metaphors too, for instance at some point she asks herself: "Why do bridges always look like mouse-traps?" She's the daughter of a bookstore owner, and she's infatuated with a philosophy professor who's a masochistic know-it-all. So you know she's got to be deep, and stuff.
The fashion and styling are pretty fantastic though. Rebecca is a babe; I'm currently trying the heavy top eye-liner and 60s bangs thing—but in practice, women don't look that good on motorcycles... ever. It all looks great on film, but she wasn't really riding that Harley (it's a man in a wig); Her hair would be one long dread after, like, 2 minutes and eye make-up would be everywhere. All that aside, I'm just happy to see a woman wearing the appropriate gear. Most pictures of women on bikes are half naked and helmet-less. Like my dad always says, "Dress for the slide, not the ride." Oh man, Rebecca takes a slide too. I won't ruin it for you, so you'll have to trust me.
