An imaginative, humane and politically perceptive drama, Woolley's elegiac gender/class inequality piece 'Illusive Crime' expressing an unsettling, haunting quality. Minimalist, and beautifully photographed, a vibrant work of auteurist cinema, the themes of mass media duplicity, and oppressive capitalist regimes, sadly, remaining disturbingly relevant. Less aggressively experimental than his structuralist B/W Berlin works, Illusive Crime draws deserved attention to the innately voyeuristic nature of cinema, unequivocally questioning the dubious morality of the media's blithe exploitation of women.
This individualistic, boldly structured example of independent avant gardist filmmaker, Richard Woolley provides a fascinating entre into his singular mise-en-scène. Refreshingly unconventional, thought-provoking, and thoroughly unique, seen today in the ever more stifling hegemony of corporate filmmaking uniformity, Woolley's engaging iconoclasm makes for altogether bracing agitprop cinema!
