The film would’ve been better if it was a straight-up melodrama. Instead, The Pirate languishes in being halfway between a standard melodrama and truly experimental film. There’s a level of artificiality to the film which could be neat if it pushed it further into some sort of ironic commentary on the medium of cinema. It’s there because a lesbian relationship is unusual in films and this film is obsessed with being unusual more than being good or emotionally honest. Like everything else in the movie, the lesbian relationship lacks a layer of depth. I’m not and I don’t like seeing my sexuality exoticised and used as part of a plea to be “challenging” cinema. While the film does allow a level of depth and focus to its lesbian characters, it very much feels like the audience is supposed be be intrigued and shocked by seeing two women as lovers. This is not a case of matter of fact lesbian portrayals. The focus on a lesbian relationship is part of The Pirate’s obsession with making “weird” choices. Things just sort of happen in this film in a way that stopped me from fully enjoying it.

There are good individual scenes and ideas but a lack of internal logic. There’s often not rhyme or reason to their actions beyond the fact that they’re in this sort of pretentious, weird melodrama and are playing along with this tone. Things just sort of happen in The Pirate for the sake of “cinema.” Additionally, it feels as if the characters have some sort of genre awareness. But it lacks the structure to support it. The Pirate has a lot of good moments, ideas and tone. The final character is an unnamed man who is posing as a private detective and follows the other characters around. He shows up to inject additional melodrama into Alma and Carole’s already melodramatic scenes.

Said girl acts more or less like Carole’s assistant. Also present at the hotel is a young unnamed girl who’s a friend of Carol’s. Here, she tries to convince Alma to rekindle their relationship. After reuniting one night, Carole semi-kidnaps Alma away to a hotel. The leads are Alma and Carole, a pair of ex-lovers. There are five main characters in The Pirate.

Film pirates semi