Nothing is Illuminated in Filth and Wisdom

“Filth and wisdom, they are two sides of the same coin,” says A.K. (Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello), intimately to the camera, as he puffs away, in an intensely cool manner, at his cigarette.

Madonna’s directorial debut, titled Filth and Wisdom, is a story about three friends named A.K., Juliette, and Holly, who live less-than-ideal lives in their little (but charming) London flat.

A.K. is an aspiring Ukrainian musician who does odd jobs between gigs to pay the rent, while at the same time dealing with daddy issues that seem to drag him into ruts, and pining away for his flatmate Holly. Juliette (played by Vicky McClure) is a self-medicating, unhappy pharmacy assistant who dreams of saving children in Africa who suffer from AIDS—but she can’t manage to rally up enough courage, or money, to actually make the trip. Instead, she hangs up a poster and collection cup in the pharmacy where she works, hoping that act will somehow atone for her lack of agency.

Holly (played by Holly Weston) is an unemployed, goody-two-shoes ballerina finding it extremely difficult to pay her share of the rent—and, because of an off-hand comment made by A.K., she finds herself applying for a job as a stripper at a gentleman’s club.

Filth and Wisdom itself is a less-than-perfect attempt at a self-discovery type of film. Despite its occasionally nice framing and interesting use of mirrors, the dialogue is often cliché and the characters are not very well-developed. They each have very obvious goals, problems, and anti-climactic transformations in the end. Apart from the annoyances, though, Mr. Hutz from the gypsy punk-rock band Gogol Bordello is enjoyable to watch on screen. And if this film got anything right on the money, it was the soundtrack.

Just what, exactly, has the audience learned at the end of the hour-and-twenty-minute-long film? It’s hard to say for sure, but everyone will wonder what motivated Madonna. Perhaps it is due to the current craziness of her personal life, but Madonna does not seem to be taking much pride in her little pet project. She did well in promoting the film at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, but has made herself exceedingly scarce in New York as it hit the screening circuit.

Where is she, then? Madonna was not available for comment, but one can only assume her concert tour is very strenuous, leaving her to rely on her people to promote the short little film she expanded into a feature length.

Filth and Wisdom is now playing at the IFC Theater.