Double-Blind

For anyone who knows Calle's 'phototextual' work as published in a number of books or has seen one of her many exhibitions, this film adds a wry but also romantic part of her autobiography to the picture. 'No Sex Last Night' starts with a dedication to Calle's writer-friend Herve Guibert, who died of AIDS in Paris as she started the drive from New York to LA with Greg Shephard recounted and videoed in the film. It ends with a second dedication to the great French documentarist Chris Marker, for his film 'La Jetée', which is alluded to constantly in the visual composition of 'No Sex Last Night'. Although Calle's and Shephard's film ends by telling of the failure of their brief and unconventional marriage, thereby undoing the romance genre it is best classified as, it is funny, wittily shot, and very cleverly edited - perhaps a cinematic one-off for this artist/photographer, but one which bears comparison with classic cinema verite and a lot of contemporary video work. Highly recommended for anyone interested in those kinds of cinema and video.