Kissed

In a breakout role that won her a Genie Award, Molly Parker plays Sandra, a young woman who becomes enraptured by the sensory experience of death. As a child, Sandra performs rituals in the woods, giving dead animals a sacred burial and examining their lifeless bodies with a trace-like focus. This lifelong fascination leads Sandra to study as an embalmer at a mortuary school, where her feelings about death develop into necrophilia. She describes the act as “crossing over,” straddling the realm between the living and the dead as she reaches a newfound sexual satisfaction with the cadavers. A fellow student, Matt (Peter Outerbridge), becomes obsessed with Sandra and her sexual preferences, projecting his own selfish desires onto her while desperately attempting to seduce her so he too can be treated like one of her deceased lovers.

On its original VHS release trailer, Lynne Stopkewich’s film is described as being at the “bizarre intersection of desire, sex, and death.” While the subject matter appears taboo at first blush, Kissed subverts expectations, shaping Sandra's sexuality through her struggles with intimacy. She longs for a kind of safety and satisfaction that no living person can give her. Sandra yearns to lose herself completely without the fear of being hurt. The film strikes a profound balance between reality and fantasy with Sandra fumbling towards ecstasy, as the Sarah McLachlan song featured in the film suggests.

TIFF is honoured to bring Kissed back to the Festival in a new 4K restoration from Canadian International Pictures 30 years after its World Premiere.

ROBYN CITIZEN

Kissed was restored in 4K by Canadian International Pictures from the original 16mm A/B camera negatives and master mix magnetic soundtrack.

Content advisory: suicide, nudity, sexual content, scenes of surgery