BEYOND THE FRIDGE
The 12 scenes in Beyond the Fridge (in part directed by Phil Setren) are essentially an extended meditation on women, men, and food. Kotin mixes performance with film to drive home some of the conscious and unconscious motivations of her character, Laurel. But absent is a serious examination of the despair and sense of powerlessness under the relentless male gaze her character seems to feel. Instead Laurel is a princess of denial, indulging her unfocused passion and sense of impotence in the consumption of chocolate, the pursuit of a modeling career, and finally the creation of a fitness video in which she shows women how to hide or augment various parts of their physiques while making love, enthusiastically demonstrating in a Victoria’s Secret-style teddy.
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Kotin, who not only performs but directed the six films in Beyond the Fridge, has a wonderfully appealing face, as asymmetrically evocative as a young Anna Magnani, all angles and eyes and beautifully curved lips. After performing in New York for more than a decade, she recently moved here, and she’s got to be one of the tightest performers working in Chicago. She never falters, seemingly always in control of the space, tightly focused, and absolutely there for her audience. And as if all that weren’t enough, she’s funny too.
