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8 1/2 WomenRating:
Release Date: 10 October, 2000 Retail Price: $24.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (9 total) |
8 1/2 Women Reviews
uhm o.k.?
Lynne:If it's possible to make a film that could be deemed "enjoyably bad"; do you think its possible to do the opposite?
Don:What you mean "unenjoyably good?"
Lynne:Yes.
Don:Uhm,well--(DOORBELL RINGS)
Lynne:Excuse me for a moment.
Don:Well no I don't(brief pause) to be quite honest.
(Lynne without hesitation pulls open the front door revealing the filmmaker Peter Greenaway framed by the late afternoon's fleshy glow.STUDIO APPLAUSE.Greenaway holds for the applause with a knowing smirk before entering the doorway.)
Peter:I respectfully beg to differ motherf***er.
STUDIO APPLAUSE
Well, it's a Greenway
Peter Greenway's films bore and/or repulse most people. They are probably the not-so-secret favorites of the cultural elitists, the decadently bored bourgeoisie. I'm too plebeian and stupid to be the former and too poor and hungry to be the latter, that's why I don't like his films. Nonetheless, his works are provocative, which either reflects his screwed-up brain cells possibly under the influence of alcohol or drugs or both, or his ingenuity of making a name for himself and maybe even a fortune in the financial and carnal senses, too.
In this dark comedy about sexual excess and experimentation, at one point the question is popped:"Do most film directors make films to realize their sexual fantasies?" The sexist, female-excluding nature of this remark aside, even a fool knows what Greenway's answer is. It's as if he were showing his naked body on the silver screen -- projected through his actors -- and then asking the audience "Do you like it? Do you like *it*?" Snobbish? Perhaps. Deranged. Most likely. Stupidly patronizing? Definitely.
As you probably already know, the story is about a father and son's effort to turn the father's estate in or near Geneva into a harem. The most unsettling scene of the film is not about the women they "seduce" (or buy), but an earlier one in which the son gets intimate with his father. To an uninitated viewer of the utterly-sick-and-gross genre like myself, this was just plain stupid, proof that Greenway is an old pervert who's fascinated with sex with anybody, any animal (even pigs, as he so lovingly describes in the film), or anything.
I don't want to come off (no pun intended!) as desireful of attacking Greenway's superficial, sex-ladden artistry, although as I mentioned in the beginning, his films are repulsive to the general audience. Of course, like Robert Mapplethorpe, he shocks to gain fame, so he can make films to reflect his sick sexual fantasies, and, as the film drily observes in that same scene, to get women (or men? or pigs?) into his bed.
The sexual escapades of the father and son are rather boring, and the sad ending does evoke some sympathy. Somehow the ending reminded me of the Hong Kong erotic flick "Sex & Zen" (the original one with Amy Yip), with the same message that "oops, too much sex is actually bad for your health and relationships." It can't get more pretentious than this.
If you are a Greenway fan, you won't be disappointed. This is a black comedy and there are some very funny spots. But overall, it's a film about self indulgence, of self indulgence, and (despite the quake-destroyed ending), for self indulgence.
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