MOVIE REVIEW : Stylish ‘1-900’ Reveals the Isolation in Today’s Society

The perils--and pleasures--of phone sex are illuminated in “1-900,” Theo van Gogh’s audacious, persuasive film of a controversial Dutch play, which he adapted to the screen with its playwright Johan Doesburg, his actors and two other writers.

Although suffused with blunt sex talk, the film is actually discreet, firmly focused on its two characters’ inner longings more than on their bodies. Ariane Schluter and Ad van Kempen do an outstanding job of involving us in their characters.

Schluter’s Sarah, who is a stunning twentysomething professional living in a tastefully decorated apartment, initiates the contact with Van Kempen’s Thomas, a divorced architect whose apartment is also his workplace. After some mutual self-consciousness, the two of them are soon turning each other on with sex fantasies, but ever so gradually their once-a-week contact develops into a power play and beyond that, in violation of the rules of the game, a desire for an actual meeting.

The point is that they’ve in effect painted each other in the corner. How can they live up to the fantasy image each has of the other? Thomas has described himself as a terrific 33-year-old stud when instead he’s a short, somewhat paunchy guy with thinning hair at least a decade older.

He’s nonetheless a warm, attractive guy, but Sarah would surely be disappointed by him in person, considering the image he has projected to her. If that is sad, perhaps it’s even sadder that a knockout like Sarah would feel the need to resort to phone sex.

Van Gogh--yes, he’s Vincent’s nephew several generations removed--and Doesburg manage the tricky business of not condemning phone sex while suggesting how it reveals the terrible isolation and loneliness so many people, even nice-looking men and women, can feel in urban contemporary society.

Van Gogh and his ace cinematographer, Tom Erisman, have also created an elegant, highly visual film that takes place in only two sets with only two people. “1-900” is one film for adults that actually is grown-up.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film contains no graphic sex but much blunt language, some nudity; unsuitable for children.

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‘1-900’

Ariane Schluter: Sarah

Ad van Kempen: Thomas

A Zeitgeist Films release of a Dino Filmprodukties production. Producer-director Theo van Gogh. Screenplay by Johan Doesburg, Marcel Otten, Ad van Kempen, Ariane Schluter; based on the play “06” by Doesburg. Cinematographer Tom Erisman. Editor Ot Louw. Music Ruud Bos. Art director Ruud van Dijk. In Dutch with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 478-6379.