Peaches Goes Bananas

Premiering at Venice Days at the Venice Film Festival, Peaches Goes Bananas spans 17 years of footage captured by French filmmaker Marie Losier, painting a poetic, 16mm portrait of the personal and artistic journey of Canadian artist and feminist queer icon Merrill Nisker, better known by her stage name, Peaches. 

While fans of the cult musician and artist will be aware that the release follows months after Teaches of Peaches, another elegy to the trailblazing artist that debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, Losier’s distinctive approach ensures that the two remain in entirely separate realms. The project, which began when Losier met Peaches backstage at a Psychic TV show in Brussels, is shot with a hand-held Bolex camera that captures scenes without synchronised sound. This artistic freedom is not lost on Losier, as the film is composed of spontaneous, raw and unfiltered moments that a more complex or conventional set-up would have missed.

Transcending the scope of a documentary, Peaches Goes Bananas takes the form of a two-decade-long conversation between two artists, in which Peaches is the subject. The musician’s experiences with the passage of time are intertwined with Losier’s visual portrayal of her body – whether adorned in vibrant costumes, everyday attire, or completely bare – as a canvas for art and physical expression across the years. Her role as a cherished family member is also reconciled with her larger-than-life persona, as viewers are given an intimate glimpse into Peaches’s personal life, focusing on her relationships with her parents and older sister, Suri. 

Perhaps unintentionally, the friendship between Losier and Peaches takes centre stage in the narrative. The boundary between filmmaker and subject is blurred, with Losier playing a leading role despite her absence from the frame. As Peaches strikes poses for a Calvin Klein-esque photoshoot, Losier candidly discusses the physical and societal challenges of aging, while also revealing her own vulnerabilities and lived experiences. In the footage of Peaches on stage, the camera appears to dance alongside her, archiving the musician’s magnetic presence and highlighting the sheer physicality of each performance. Each movement and gesture is captured in its full dynamism, presented not merely as a cinematic frame but a visceral experience, thereby intertwining the narratives of the two friends. 

Christina Yang

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Watch the trailer for Peaches Goes Bananas here: