Sexo, mentiras y video

Spader's character was the reason I enjoyed the film so much. I could identify with him and his dilemma. It seemed he felt like a stranger in an even stranger land. Who were these humans that seem so happy in the same world he could not find happiness within? What is this life we live? More importantly, what is the point? Why bother? His great battle with existence was a philosophical one. He, like myself, felt infinite sadness over the knowledge that are no concrete answers...

The movie is also interesting because it attacks the main sexual organ, the mind. Graham while trying to distance himself from the human experience by capturing sex confessionals on videotape, perhaps unwittingly became more intimate with his "partners." Roger Ebert points out that the films' argument is that conversation is better than sex.

Personally, I think the movie is about trying to find happiness with another person. Some Modest Mouse song lyrics come to mind. "And it's hard to be a human being/ And it's harder as anything else/ and I'm lonesome when you're around/ I'm never lonesome when I'm by myself" Graham finds it hard to be a human being and live in this human world full of values that he finds strange, confusing, and most importantly unfulfilling. What do you do when your ideology and needs don't mesh in the society you live within? How does one deal with feelings of loneliness in a society that spurns him? This movie is about one man's way.

James Spader does such an excellent job as this character. In fact, great acting all around by the entire cast and excellent writing and directing by Mr. Soderbergh. Go see this movie now!

Yes, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" is about sex, lies and videotape. And, while the sex is mostly served in dialogue-form and not a single shot of nudity is present, there is some graphic lying and some explicit videotape. Kinky, right?

Well, not really. "Sex, Lies and Videotape" is Steven Sodenbergh's first film and it's not a bad one. It's just not entirely worthy of the praise it received, at Cannes for example. The situations in the film do create a fair amount of tension that moves the story along. But then, it'd be hard not to have some tension in a film about a woman whose husband is cheating on her with her sister, while she starts interacting with a stranger who is the husband's old college roommate and has a strange videotape fetish and may or may not be a pathological liar. (How do you believe someone who just confessed to having been a pathological liar to not being one anymore? The film doesn't really riddle that one for us.)

Clearly, these characters clash together. But it's not as heated or interesting as it was in later Sodenbergh's films like the spectacular "Traffic." The dialogues in "Sex, Lies and Videotape" range from good to incredibly awkward. But the real strength of the film is the actors. While James Spader clearly stands out - I have never seen him deliver such a subtle performance where every scene simply works for him - Andie McDowell is phenomenal, Peter Gallagher playing the scummy, treacherous husband yuppie lawyer type is great and Laura San Giacomo as the vulgar sister / lover is fabulous. Their performances make the script work, which, under normal circumstances with inferior actors would have seemed rather silly.

It is a film about relationships, dilemma, courage and more. What works in life and what does not. Honesty does and (crudely speaking) at a very basic level that is the message. At the very heart are the three protagonists who are stuck. The therapist is spectacularly wrong in his interpretation to the apparently frigid wife: 'If you think about it ...you are obsessed about things you have no control over'. But she demonstrates at the end that she did have the control. All she needed was a better, more 'intimate' therapist; a catalyst : Graham ; who ends up uncluttering the cheating sister in law's mind and forces the husband to confront his problems in the process. It is a remarkably optimistic film in its content and therefore perhaps slightly unrealistic.

It is a film about masterful use of contrasts; the two women and the two men could not have been more opposite in every possible respect. In a way Graham is also a perfect contrast to the imperfect Psychoanalyst. This helps the director bring out the message clearly.

The whole film is crafted in a minimalist way, flows smoothly and does not carry much 'garbage'! Music, camera and the narrative are almost perfect in that they are almost invisible. So are the actors, especially James Spader and to a large extent Andie MacDowell. Gallegher is probably less than perfect but very good nonetheless. Laura Giacomo portrays a rather difficult character really well. It treats the audience with respect as the message is subtle and very personal, as it should be. My only grievance is the last office scene involving Gallegher was probably unnecessary.

Sex and the videotapes are incidental to the storey and perhaps misnomers therefore.

It is like reading a rather well written short storey and I would recommend 'Days And Nights In The Forest' (perhaps slightly more realistic and understated than this film) by Satyajit Ray to those who have enjoyed this film.

My rating 8/10.

Sex, Lies and Videotape will probably strike the average viewer as irredeemably degenerate, maybe even perverted, since voyeurism is still considered aberrant behavior. But as far as this film is concerned, that's the appearance, not the reality. Whereas the drama revolves to a certain extent around the voyeuristic masturbation of an impotent man, the heart and soul of the film is an unrelenting, hard driving psychological siege on the biggest erogenous zone of all: the brain.

This film is about sex. But it's not about the frothy swapping of fluids and feelings. It's about honesty, without which one can't have intimacy, which is to sexual stimulation what the water valve is to the hydrant. From beginning to end, we see this theme brought into focus by the dramatic contrast between two different relationships – the one based on lies and deceit, the other based upon honesty. And guess which one wins out in the long run?

In a sense, it's what your mother and Sunday school teacher taught you all along. But what makes this movie way more interesting than your mother or Sunday school teacher is the level of honesty it suggests is necessary as the basis of a healthy relationship. Ann (Andy McDowell), for example, an acceptably moral person tells the voyeuristic masturbator `You got a problem.' He replies by adding that he has a lot of problems. But, he says, `They belong to me.'

Somehow, the openness about one's problems renders their bile and poison ineffective. `Lilies that fester,' said Shakespeare, `smell far worse than weeds.'

A strange, but very rewarding movie. Soderbergh has went on to create many wonderful films since "Sex, Lies and Videotape" but what has captured my attention about this film is his how he kept the film simple and concentrated on the details around the four characters. He mentions in the commentary of his influence of Eric Rohmer (who created the popular films as part of his "Six Moral Tales") and the long dialogue between characters. Maybe it made no impression to me back then but now, any director who can have their characters engage in dialogue with meaning and profoundness is wonderful.

Andie MacDowell was the surprising star because in the beginning, I thought she would be the typical jilted housewife but we see her character emerge as one that is confused to one that finally gains perspective. Laura San Giacomo did well in portraying the free-will Cynthia (which she would go on to do again in "Pretty Woman"), John Mullany (Peter Gallagher) was the ultimate sleezeball and for Graham (Spader), his character was mysterious and although the viewer doesn't know exactly what had happen to him, it's how the character was changed after changing the character he videotaped. As the film itself, one can see how this independent film helped revolutionize indie films and allowing media coverage. Sure, we see independent films, art-house films receive media coverage today but in the context of independent films getting seen by a wide audience, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" was definitely instrumental in being part of that small group of films that Hollywood would give a chance to.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10.