Description of Judith Barry's 'Casual Shopper'

The camera scoots around the produce aisles

Casual Shopper

Muzak and intercom

Switch to scene overlaid by funky music

We are in a record store, or the record department

Switch to string-type accompaniment we watch a woman shopper’s back passing into a menswear-cum-sporting goods department

This is the first time we see handsome Bill, the store clerk who will also occasionally feature as a mannequin through the whole, and indeed the remainder of, the film

What a moustache – black and buoyant, you could dream with such a moustache

Close up on him smiling interaction with customer at cash register, here he is wearing a down-home flannel check shirt but that’s not his customary garb as we will soon learn

Pan upwards and finish on tennis rackets, though I have a hard time differentiating those from squash

Racks, that is

Now we seem to be in the homewares department, we approach the gleaming sewing machines

The Sale signs and the stringed music – Sale means dirty in French but this is a very Lacanian film

Now we are definitely in menswear, we see Bill imperiously fingering the suits, he is the attendant, his moustache precedes him

Still muzak

Then switch to fluorescent office interior, and client leaning over reception

Back to the moustachioed commodity valet in the handbag section gazing into mirrored panel of display cabinet 

The lingerie section…

Plinky stringy music, little dewdrops forming on synths, classical reverie over the satin bed fashion

Lingering over mannequins

A and explores a white clutch

We see the casual shopper, then cutaway to likely arrangement of clothes resting in wicker easy chair, in lieu of mannequin

Peppy disco music as casual shopper glides among the racks, her features are determined but blank

She stops by the magazine rack and browses

Penthouse

GQ, Jack Nicholson with big moustache grinning on the cover

A men’s fashion magazine, cut to pair of legs peeling off wall in smart Italian denim

The images in the men’s fashion magazine

Cut back to smart legs walking, between funky music and muzak of her leafing

Her feet in red fuck me stilettos, approached from behind by elegant men’s loafers

More leafing through ads and fashion gentlemen

L’Uomo 

Now we see her passing an Italian menswear display window in the mall, she stops to gaze at the mannequin before going inside

Zoom in: “Clothes Do make the man”

The Casual Shopper, by the way, is a dame of the utmost elegance

“I’m just looking,” she says to an unseen solicitation off screen

Bill discreetly observes

“Just looking,“ again

light supper jazz accompaniment

she wanders slowly through the aisles

the uptempo funky music starts in again

as she leans over the balcony and espies the moustachioed epigone of male sartorial perfection on a lounge one floor below, he turns and meets her gaze

close up on her face, still impassive

cut away back to chaise longue as before – no one there

her face gazing downwards in profile now

uptempo music reverts to light muzak as she looks up and finds herself in the anodyne surroundings of the eyewear department, the rotating display cases fill the frame

there is Bill, adjusting some sunglasses on his improbably moustachioed visage in a hand mirror, he turns his head to see

our casual shopper on the lounge where formerly he was purporting to be, veiled by an exuberant potted palm

now he sits opposite her on another lounge (leather sofa, brown)

and gets up and leaves as she has not looked up, engrossed by the models’ in the men’s fashion magazine in her lap

more Disney music as she picks up a box off a display to inspect it, camera drifts to creak of revolving Personalised Soap with Gift Box display and ambles off in the reverse direction

we see casual shopper and make ideal in embrace in front of the gift items

the camera swoons around them as they gaze into each other’s eyes, approaching painfully close for the Hollywood kiss 

their faces, bar the movement of the eyes, are airbrushed and flawless like mannequins – but that’s what early 80s makeup will do to you

we are too close

romantic syrupy music as before

cue eyes lips moustache

but it’s a fantasy! There is no one there! The casual shopper wanders off, disappointed

looking to fulfil herself in the aisles, turning rotating display racks, her eyes have a searching, somewhat petulant look

now she is walking past a garage door in a well-appointed Californian suburban house, slowly and deliberately in her astronomical shoes

now she has dark glasses on

the music is somewhat nino rota

as she walks through the doors of the mall, she turns to look through the window, and suave moustache man is coming out of a car in the parking lot, wearing his customary sleek light-grey suit and aviator shades

striding purposefully through the revolving doors of the mall

she smiles slightly, expectantly, as he passes by, but he barely spares her a glance and mounts the escalator with no acknowledgement

she follows him

they are both walking down the escalator

into a very modest and badly lit shopping mall, but clearly luxurious by the standards of the time – perhaps the premium was on exclusivity rather than design

Remember Fordism, kids?

We see him striding

Her in pursuit

They see each other through a plate glass display

He strides on

They pass each other, not noticing

They also pass each other on the up and down escalators

He is going up

She is going down

Their gazes are in different directions

Or perhaps he is looking at her but she is looking elsewhere – it’s hard to tell with the quality of the copy

Now she has come to casually shop in a supermarket

We see her browse the racks of romance novels

And we see him weighing some oranges 

To each their own commodity

He saunters past the apples

As by now she is in a bookshop

Syrupy string muzak has continued throughout, by the way

I’ll make a note of it when it changes

Another magazine rack

She picks up an issue of Self

And leafs through it

Drops it on the floor by her red stilettos

She is walking through the mall again and sits at a diner counter

She giggles as she leafs through her magazine

“What’s so funny?” a male voice off camera queries

she looks up, still laughing

“I’m catching up on my reading. What are you doing?”

we see she is addressing moustache idol, who is seated next to her

he gazes down at the counter, drawn by the irresistible pull of gravity exerted on his moustache

he gets up and whispers something inaudible to her before walking off

she is seated at a reception desk, he is standing before it

she turns and speaks to the camera

“I think I have one of those faces.”

“Like a decoy,” his voice responds off screen as we see her face in close-up

veering to close-up of model’s face in magazine

they are standing by a railing in the vicinity of the homewares department

“It’s peaceful here, I feel relaxed,” she says

“I can tell,” he says

in the next shot, which is a little farther but pretty much matched, her clothes and hair have changed to resemble that of the model in the magazine

“Looking for anything in particular?” he inquires

“No, I’m jus looking,” she responds

through the glorious mirror and leather veneers of the furniture dept

they are seated together on bench there

seemingly conversing pleasantly

there is a close-up on him, but we don’t hear what he is saying, until . . .

“I have to get back now.”

He gets up and strides away, impassively, as though in an ad of his own devising

The camera follows him and we hear her voice

“Where are you going?”

he turns

says nothing

shot of her

reverse shot – he is now a casually posed mannequin leaning against a post, where a second ago he had arrested his progress at the sound of her words

she rises from the bench and goes to meet him they gaze at each other in close proximity

touching

some tango muzak starts up, the camera movement makes it look like they’re tangoing

but it’s still hard to determine whether he is alive here or a mannequin

her beau ideal

although he grips her by the arms, they could plausibly be dancing, but his face is so rigid

footage from Marnie, she is at her typewriter, watching slyly as secretary unlocks the safe

typing

and watching

sean connery observes her from the back

cutaway to casual shopper’s face, as though she is watching this somewhere

and back to marnie

which becomes a blue flicker on an overhead monitor

as casual shopper turns her head

the bearer of the moustache is striding across the floor

she gets up and exits

he comes to a halt in some department or other, looking lost, with a book in his hand

he must be wondering where she went

looks around

he wanders through different departments

toys

ladies’ shoes

ladies’ fashions…

abruptly halts and faces the camera

he has seen something

she is sitting on a couch behind some plants on the shop floor

an ad for Rive Gauche perfume is playing, and she is watching it on the monitor

“For the girl who’s so contemporary!”

he steps into her view

she gazes up at him

“What shall we do?”

“Keep looking,” he says

now they stroll together into a gift shop and browse

same creaking rotating displays

now new agey electronica

she inspects various items

“What is it?” she says

he inspects various items

“No, that’s not it,” says her face in split reflection

“What is it?”  “Looks like an ashtray,” he offers.

Same shot of her repeating “No, that’s not it.”

“If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss it,” he says

“Wait a minute,” she says anxiously.

Picks up a ceramic bunny, then a ceramic piggy bank.

And a few more tchotchkes

Now they are sipping coffee at a café

‘I’m sleepy,” she says.

Panning shot of gleaming retro-futuristic diner interior

Then funky music again as mustachio fiend adjusts a button of his jacket before the mirror and turns

He is glimpsed in various reflecting surfaces

She caresses a suit on a hanger

He fixes a suit on display

He studies himself in the mirror

The nino rota music again

She changes guises but not position gazing at him from afar

He fixes the tie display and watches her leave

Meets her in the mall court she is on a bench reading the paper

“Where have you been?" she says.

“waiting for you.” He replies from another bench.

Now their benches are adjacent and they are seated back to back

“Did you read much as a child?” she asks him

“No, and I don’t dream either,” he says

“But it’s what I like to talk about” she insists and stalks off, leaving him slumped on the bench.

Now they are shopping together again, this time in a book shop.

“Do you see it?” she asks

“No, I’ll have to look.”

“Why don’t we get something here, she suggests, with some big Anacin boxes framing her face

She is in the supermarket pushing a trolley stops to inspect an item of produce as the Rive gauche jingle comes on again

She weighs the oranges

Meanwhile, he contemplates a model home-building kit in the craft shop

His hand covers hers and lifts it from the pile of oranges

This is in heavy close-up

“Does it help?” he asks

“Sometimes,” she responds, as they neck on a couch

their lips barely touching

nino rota type music again

fantasy again! He is nowhere to be found, as she listlessly considers the empty place on the couch next to her

he sits sipping coffee in the food court

she loiters at a distance

now they are together in the greeting card shop

picking out assorted cards, gazing into each other's eyes

cards with lascivious slogans

romance novel covers

he watches her as she inspects a card

Things are getting worse, it says

Personal Greetings YOU create section

They gaze at each other again

"Everything I am misses everything you are."