Acts of Love - In den Fängen der Sinnlichkeit

This is a beautiful and rare look at rural America in the 1960s. Dennis Hopper plays a schoolteacher with a gimpy leg who is quite unexceptional. He's middle-aged but still only engaged (to Amy Irving who is fantastic in this!)and still lives with his aged mother (the wonderful Julie Harris). Suddenly, a young, fresh, beautiful and vibrant teenager arrives at his school and he finds his heart - and other vital organs - stirred beyond endurance. She's technically not innocent (she's not a virgin) but she's no Lolita either. She's the epitome of the young women of Andrew Wyeth's paintings. In fact, the whole film looks and feels like a Wyeth painting: organic and idyllic with an emptiness that's filed with loneliness. The script is intelligent and original, allowing each character to be fully developed, and Dennis Hopper gives the performance of his career.

I've read a few reviews here and elsewhere that complain about Hopper's age and the frontal nudity. I belong to the school of thought that nothing natural is ugly, and that art should not ALWAYS be pure and youthful and beatific (which BTW, was what Hitler's vision was. Art that wasn't beautiful was classified as "degenerate" and banned). If there's room for artists like Michelangeo and Egon Schiele in this world, and there's surely room for Brad Pitt AND Dennis Hopper!

If the nude body is something that you just can't look at then a film like this may not be for you (there's only one very brief scene). But keep in mind that you can't broaden your vision of humanity if you don't have an open mind and are willing to look below the superficial surface that at least in Hollywood, poses as reality.

In the countryside of Texas, Joseph Svenden (Dennis Hopper) is a forty-seven-year-old schoolteacher with one lamed leg since he had an accident when he was a teenager, who lives in a farm with his mother that is terminal of cancer. Joey has been dating the widow schoolteacher Rosealee Henson (Amy Irving) for six years but does not marry her. His life is a boring routine, and he has never seen the ocean. When the hot seventeen-year-old Catherine Wheeler (Amy Locane) joins his class, her father Major Wheeler (Gary Busey) visits Joey and rents his barn to keep Catherine's horse there. Soon Catherine seduces Joey, and they have frequent sex in the barn. Joey knows that he is wrong but cannot resist the sex with Catherine. When Joey is fired from the school that is moving to another place and his mother dies, Rosealee learns his affair with the teenager and his life turns upside down.

"Carried Away" is a great and erotic romance directed by Bruno Barreto, about a middle-aged man that has a romance with a seventeen-year-old teenager. The midlife crisis of the lead character, Joseph Svenden, is very well explained by the script. First, it is hard to resist the beautiful body of the Lolita Amy Locane, no matter who you are. His affair makes him think about his boring and routine life in the countryside. The nude is not vulgar, but beautiful, and the sex scene between Amy Irving, who was Bruno Barreto's wife in 1996, and Dennis Hopper, is delicate. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Atos de Amor" ("Love Acts")

It's been interesting to watch Dennis Hopper grow up in films, from the skinny, scared kid in "The Sons of Katie Elder", to his iconic role as Billy in "Easy Rider", to the whacked-out journalist in "Apocalypse Now", to this thoroughly middle-aged character. Here, he is the ultimate grown-up, at least at first, who feels the need to go back to years past in the idea of love/sex with the young student. He nailed his part. Amy Irving nailed hers, too, though it was a bit of a smaller part. Amy Locane provided the eye candy, for us as well as for Joseph Svenden (Hopper). Harder to understand her character's (Catherine) motivations. I can see that the pickings were pretty slim in that time and place, but the 47-year-old semi-crippled more-or-less engaged teacher? This film is worth seeing, if you can take some fairly unsettling images (Hopper naked). Grade: B

A well-written story peopled with memorable characters. A bit off-putting, though, in its use of full frontal nudity....rather than displaying passion, Dennis Hopper and Amy Irving just looked plain cold.

And I do find it a bit of a male conceit to have a sexy nymphette of the caliber of Amy Locane be sexually aroused by a 49 yr. old (60 in real life) physically handicapped country schoolteacher who still lives on the farm with his mother. Perhaps she might have wiled away her Tuesday afternoons with him in the barn.....while she planned her weekend escapades with someone more suitable. As a woman, I found myself wishing Amy Irving would find herself a 17 yr. old stud to carry HER away....now THAT might be reason for some frontal nudity. But this film really is quite good....I'm just not sure women will like it nearly as much as the fellas.

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. If it had a few musical numbers, it would beat out Ishtar for worst movie of all time. Ed Wood is smiling somewhere.

This film is NOT a convincing character study, the premise that a 49 year old with arrested development issues is going to have a revitalizing affair with the local sex kitten (who initiates it!!) seems more implausible than the plots of most action films. At least the action films supply devices which we can use to suspend our disbelief. A 17-year old with a penchant for handicapped men still living with their mothers is beyond my ken.

At least I got a laugh out of this movie, Amy Locane's immolation of the horse (a ruse to get Hopper to act as a hero and save it, but his gimpy leg precludes such a possibility) is forever etched in my mind.