Illusive Crime

Probably the most controversial of Woolley's films, because of an audio rape sequence with flashes of nudity that split critics and viewers (especially feminists) right down the middle – some saying it was exploitative, others saying it was essential to get the formalist message (that we are all voyeurs in the cinema, often viewing at the expense of women) across. The film tells the tale of a housewife (who we never totally see, but can hear) trapped in her luxury house at the mercy of a husband and ruthless police team investigating an illusory political crime that she may or may not have committed. Her husband (the only character we see in a conventional manner) comes in and out of the story and alternates between patronising solicitousness and cold anger. The whole is constructed around a relentlessly repetitive sequence of shots that, in the course of the film, moves ten times from wide shot exterior to intimate interiors, with the story being updated and narrated every time we return to the exterior. In each sequence, there is one POV handheld shot that varies and is usually from the wife's point of view; otherwise the story is told within the confines of the repeating images (same framing and camera movement) with only the action varying. Voiceovers narrate and reflect on a woman's position, as well as dominant male perspectives, in society.