No Sir, Orison

“No Sir” is a snappy if rhetorical anagram for “Orison”, an archaic word meaning prayer, address to God and, by extension, even the mere act of uttering words. The film’s title is itself a palindrome, symbolically accentuating the film’s two symmetrical but opposite camps: the colloquial versus the ceremonial, a polarity that Landow visually compresses into the single image of the devotee in the supermarket aisle. The hero, who forsakes his groceries for an oratio on the alleged similarity between love and the market, in turn exchanges this hymn for a prayer. The intervention of a crudely sceptical ‘deus ex machina’ brings the film full circle with a reply that answers the question even as it implicitly contradicts it. As always with Landow, simplicity is a sign of complexity; the wry pun of the ending confirms this. Landow succeeds in fashioning a parody (of traditional societal stereotypes of religious faith) that in fact mitigates against the negative intent of the original stereotypes. For the supermarket becomes a proof that religious faith is indeed necessary in a materialist culture, a flat backdrop that translates the stuff of survival into cash receipts. No Sir Orison helps to restore the balance between Landow’s conviction and his modes of representation and fuses a new style that promises us his best works in years.” – B. Ruby Rich, Film Center. Chicago.