8 femmes 1/2

Despite being hissed at Cannes this film is still well worth seeing. I purchased the DVD and the more I watch it the better I like it. For a start, as with all Greenaway's work since The Falls, the photography is ravishing. I don't think anyone makes films which look better.

What few have picked up on is that (as well as an attempt to pick up Fellini's 8 1/2-ball and run with it), this is almost a remake of "A Zed and Two Noughts". Both films study bizarre responses to bereavement. both films play on doubling, in this case a father and son rather than two brothers. Both films touch on bestiality (with animals called Hortense!), gynecology, sex with amputees, a menagerie (in this case of women rather than animals), prostitution, uses of light, storytelling, and the colours black and white.

Where that film referenced painting, this references performance in many guises - cinema, kabuki, cross-dressing, opera, television, prostitution, as well as painting.

Contrary to at least one other user comment, there is no sexual intercourse shown in the film, although there is a quantity of nudity. It's very odd, if perhaps unsurprising, that this film has been sold as a sexy movie. SexIST? Well, confusing an ironic depiction of men's sexual fantasies with a reduction of women to the level of fantasy is 'politically correct' laziness at best. And as with most of Greenaway's films, the women are the winners in the end.

One reason this is harder work than the earlier film is the lack of Michael Nyman's ravishing music. I'm not sure why Greenaway stopped working with Nyman; possibly he felt he was stuck in a rut - perhaps he was nettled by charges that any old footage looked like Greenaway if you played Nyman's music behind it. Either way, he's yet to arrive at a truly satisfactory alternative. Here we have "Slow Boat to China" sung a capella by the two leads, rather after the manner of Morecambe and Wise. It's quite funny, but it's not the marriage of sound and image of earlier films.

The extent to which Philip Emmenthal represents Greenaway himself is perhaps worth considering. A character makes reference to Fellini having Mastroianni make love to all the women Fellini couldn't, and asks whether all directors make films to fulfil their own sexual fantasies. Emmenthal is notably the same age as Greenaway.

He may not be sweeping the art-house scene before him these days (in fact there's not much of an art-house scene left these days), but in the end, even below-par Greenaway is better than 99% of directors can even aspire to.

A master visual allegorist reaches farther and fails. But not for the reasons others claim here. Greenaway has never centered his films in the narrative -- we'd always be frustrated to look for satisfaction there. (`Drowning' which among his works most delivers a story does so incidentally.) And this is a film about women, not sex, which will frustrate others.

Here is his most character-driven film. At last, he works on closeups and some character definition. The primary ordering of the film is by basic archetypes of women, particularly archetypes drawn by men. This is supposed to be his most painterly film: the representative women are to be presented in scenes that reference famous paintings. Greenaway has stated that painting cuts to the basic drivers in cultural revolution, and the representations of women therein are tokens for everything conceived. Women thus are both humans and basic tokens in the redefinition of life.

Such a rich conception is thoroughly Greenawayan and might have formed the skeleton for another masterpiece. Along the way, we have by now familiar devices. Numbers: random as in pachinko rather than ordered. Contrasts between Eastern (here just Japanese) and Western management of concept and image. Some slight use of layered images, here in the self-reference of displaying the screenplay.

My complaints are two. I consider them fatal, but still celebrate Greenaway.

The notion of archetype depends on clarity, a natural orthogonality and completeness of classes. Here we have the nun, whore, Chinadoll, servant, cripple, childbearer, fetishist, butch, and spontaneous addict. Time is invested in defining these. A few are singled out to be something more than props for lush compositions: the geisha chinadoll, the lesbian accountant, the gambler and the opportunistic, openly enthusiastic whore. But in bringing them to life, they escape their categories: two of these are male impersonators, another two financial manipulators, another two vamps. Three are Japanese. Usually, Greenaway's combination of painting (erudite structure and framing of scenes) and film (narrative, development) reinforce one another. Here, they dissonate.

The second problem may be more fundamental. You really have to know your stuff to enjoy these films. My knowledge of The Tempest is rather deep, so I saw how rich was `Prospero's Books.' I read up on restoration comedy for `Draughtsman,' and discovered art in the viewing that I presume no one else in the theater saw. This film is supposed to reference the feminine archetype not as defined by popular culture, but by the history of painting. My knowledge of the art is poor, so I cannot attest to how deep the annotations are here. (Little use is made here of the layered image and narrative comment. Wonder why, since it would have been so natural.

But I do know Gauguin, who also was a visual allegorist, who also worked with feminine archetypes and also the fascination with Asian differences. His monumental canvas `Where are We Going?' does just what this film purports.

I wonder if there is little there in this film.

I've heard and read much criticism about Greenaway's homage to Fellini, "8 1/2 Women", and have found it both predictable and amusing. Every Greenaway film evokes raw, often disturbing emotions in the viewer-- this is nothing new, yet is treated like a revelation with every new release. And some fans and critics of Greenaway seem to be keeping a running score of his visual/emotional offenses, even tending to get irate when he fails to shock or disturb on the level of his other films. But again, this is nothing new.

So I'm humored at the reaction to "8 1/2 Women", for it is as visually stunning/arousing/disturbing as many of its predecessors while it is actually quite tame by Greenaway's standards (for one, the cannibalism/mutilation theme is missing). Yet we have those who are disappointed at the lack of shock or those who are too easily shocked, and Greenaway has long proven that you can't make everyone happy in filmmaking and, honestly, he really doesn't care what you think. You only have to watch.

He is really very similar to Fellini in this way as he is in so many others. I'm no great fan of Fellini's, not as much as I am of his successors anyway, but the parallels are apparent. Fellini worked in absurdities the way Greenaway works in the dire or some artists work in oils. He made the most ridiculous scenarios seem beautiful, artful... even sexy. He imprinted upon film as art and future filmmakers that strange and disjointed often equals desirable, and Greenaway clearly took this to heart. But like Fellini, Greenaway films come with an automatic caveat: You will see things that we are taught to abhor and despise in our society, you will have to think about things from which humans naturally shrink away and you will bear witness to the possibility that great beauty can be found in the mire if you can manage to look long enough. Greenaway's "awfulness" and attempt to disgust you is his medium and his brilliance (and his great joke on you), and if this doesn't sit well with you then you shouldn't watch Greenaway. It's as simple as that.

So, that being said - "8 1/2 Women". Not Greenaway's best, but certainly not his worst. Again we get to share in his great love of the human form in all its beauty and imperfection-- both of body and of character. But this is his most lighthearted attempt and is thoroughly enjoyable for that alone. The relationship between the widower Philip Emmenthal and his earthshakingly prattish son Storey is genuinely touching, as are their relationships with the various women they bring into their lives to replace their lost wife/lover/mother. Equally moving is the fact that these women become much more than mere objects or possessions in their house, but rather individual character studies on the strength of femininity and the power that women have over men. While Fellini's "8 1/2" may have been semi-autobiographical, here Greenaway seems to have tapped into the fantasies and realities of the relationships between men and women everywhere, focusing on the fact that neither are as simple as they seem. And that while mere sex will inevitably falter in the face of deeper love, such meaningful relationships are elusive and fleeting. He doesn't tap very far through, which is this film's only failing; the relationships and characters, some of whom are downright silly, are often taken at surface value and the themes, especially regarding sexual dynamics, are nothing new to cinema.

Nevertheless, "8 1/2 Women" is a lovely, surprisingly sincere and often humorous account of men, women, family, self-identity and the rewards of living out your fantasies along with their tempering costs. Highly recommended for anyone who has been scared away by Greenaway's other films or for anyone else who truly enjoys the beauty found in strong women and faltering men.

I went to see it because I am fascinated with Japanese culture. Furthermore, I admire mr. Greenaway for the typical British way in which he exposes hypocrisy, yet in a very tasteful manner, and combines this with baroque visuals. I was warned however that it had nothing resembling a coherent story. It might even be boring.

Call me a twisted European, but I actually like "8.5 women", more than "Eyes wide shut"! The characters are indeed to unnatural to empathize with, and the movie will certainly stimulate your mind more than it will entertain you.....or arouse you sexually. The characters find themselves in a loosely connected stream of little scenes. Rather than making normal conversation, everyone seems to say what they think in this stream of sub-consciousness.

Mr. Greenaway plays with all aspects of sex and connects these, often in a disturbing manner, with death, religion, procreation and age and gender roles. He jumps across the cultures and taboos of this globe. Of course you might be offended by the candid way in which these ideas are treated. However, explicit scenes aren't shown. It doesn't need this effect to create a strange but compelling movie about our confused sexual morals on the threshold of a new millennium.

John Standing plays Philip Emmenthal, a banker who has just gained control of some pachinko parlours. His odd son Storey is looking after them in Japan, while Philip resides in his mansion in Geneva. When Philip's wife dies, he tells Storey to return to Geneva to console him. While there, Storey takes Philip to see Felini's 8 1/2, and it gives them both an inspiration to use their mansion as a bordello. They go back to Japan and bring an assortment of women back to the mansion.

The women are all unusual. One of them, a nun, has her head shaved and speaks in a weird Dutch-sounding language. Another one keeps getting pregnant. One falls off her horse. One has a huge pet pig. Storey, and especially Philip, have both found a new lease of life. There are plenty of nude bodies on show, although hardly any sex. The two men continually talk about penises. Greenaway seems to have indulged himself in this film with sexual wallowing, with plenty of talk about sex and nude bodies. But the film is not all that bad. Certainly not as bad as it was poorly received in Cannes last year. It is yet another Greenaway film that is beautiful to look at. The setting is nice, it was filmed in Luxembourg. Not one of Greenaway's best films, but certainly worth watching.