Shot in 1994, the movie Kissed opened to rave reviews last month at the Toronto Film Festival and opened the Canadian Images program at the Vancouver International Film Festival last night.  Much of the praise centred on the performance of Molly Parker.  Entertainment Weekly called her "a real find, with a hungry avidity reminiscent of Debra Winger in her prime."  Variety hailed her "sexy, moody, screen presence."  The adjectives stacked up : "utterly compelling,""captivating,"virtually luminescent."
    The unqualified praise is even more impressive considering the shocking subject of the film.  Vancouver native Parker plays Sandra, a young woman with a passionate, lifelong interest in the journey between life and death and a job in a funeral home.  This is perhaps a tasteful way of saying that Kissed, based on the Barbara Gowdy's short story, We So Seldom Look On Love, is a film about necrophilia, about the lifelong erotic attraction Sandra feels for the newly dead.
    "I never really had any doubts about taking the role," Parker says.  "It was an intriguing, challenging, compelling character and it was a chance at a lead role in a feature film."
    She won the part two years ago when her friend, cinematographer Greg Middleton, approached her about auditioning for a role in a new low-budget feature film he was working on.
    "He told me that he couldn't tell me what the movie was about," says the young actor.  "But he said that it was really weird and he would understand if I didn't want to do it."
    It's not as though Parker was hard-up for work.  After giving up on a career as a dancer - she'd studied at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet school- Parker had landed an agent when she was still at high-school drama student in Pitt Meadows, a Vancouver suburb.  She'd been working steadily in the booming Vancouver film and television scene since she was 18.  She had already landed a role opposite Glenn Close in the movie-of-the-week Serving in Silence and had just wrapped up a lead role in another TV movie, Paris or Somewhere, a performance that would earn her a 1995 Gemini award nomination.
    Still, she was intrigued and agreed to meet with the director, Lynne Stopkewich.  The two hit it off immediately and Parker was cast in Stopkewich's feature debut.
    Parker credits Kissed's voice-over segments, most of which were taken directly from Gowdy's story, for establishing the mystical, almost reverent tone of the film.  But she also spent a lot of time working with Stopkewich on her performance.
    "There really isn't a lot of research one can do about necrophilia," she says with deadpan understatement, "so Lynn and I talked a lot about how to present this character in a way that would make her, if not completely sympathetic, at least understandable." If the reaction of the film community is any guide, they succeeded.  Kissed earned a special jury citation at the Toronto festival and was picked up for distribution by Malofilm in Canada and Samuel Goldwyn Ltd. in the United States.  It's due to arrive in theatres in March.
    Meanwhile, Parker was planning to take her family to see it on Friday.
    "I think they're going to love it," she says.  "I have an amazing supportive family.  And they already know what it's about."