Le centre du monde

It's hard to find a truly erotic movie made in America. Most mainstream films have little sex/no nudity and a whole lot of violence. And what constitutes "erotic art" in films is made up horribly contrived, unbelievable Cinemax/Playboy movies. That lack any real heat and are amazingly unsexy and boring.

So a film like "Center of the World" is a rare gem. It actually is sensual, erotic and the participants in the sex scenes seem comfortable and actually engaged in what they are doing. The scenes do not come off as awkward or simulated. Which is the challenge for any film director. To make the audience believe what they are seeing is real.

What's special here is that a great actress who one would actually like to see do nudity/sexual material, has the lead female role. There's no body doubles here and Molly seems really comfortable with the nudity and explicit sex scenes. She looks absolutely gorgeous throughout the movie. And is not the traditional, cookie butter starlet that is churned out in a 1,001 Cinemax skin flicks.

Hollywood should make more of these films. Unfortunately, I think during this age of "sexual repression" in the arts, our natural human sexual needs will continue to be hidden from view on both the big and small screens.

The Center of the World is a film that will separate the careful, thoughtful viewers of cinema from the tourists. Understandably, an unrated movie about a stripper and her client heading to Las Vegas for a three-day long, $10,000.00 lap dance is bound to attract a certain crowd. And most of them will be disappointed. The audience will probably split three ways: Those that are going to be disappointed because it isn't `Pretty Woman', those that will be disappointed that it isn't `sexier', and those careful viewers that will realize the film is neither Hollywood romance nor full-on pornography.

The Center of the World is about human contact as commerce. Both characters supply it. Richard through the internet company he works for, and Florence at Pandora's Box, the strip club where she sells carefully controlled human contact for `$60.00 for two songs.' Ironically, both characters are cut off from what most people would consider normal contact by the fact that they `sell' a specialized form of it. Florence by the rules of her job and Richard by the multiple computers screens he cannot seem to get away from.

The characters are somewhat comfortable in their respective situations until they leave the controlled environments with which they have set up for themselves and with which they are familiar. Even in one of the least real places on earth, Las Vegas, real human contact sneaks in and screws things up. As they start to get to know each other and deal with sometimes mundane and sometimes intense situations, Richard mistakes it for something deeper and Florence sees it for what it is but retreats back into her role as the untouchable stripper. Neither character seems comfortable with normal contact. Florence certainly doesn't want it from someone who pays to see her naked body and Richard seems ill equipped to handle even a normal relationship, let alone one that starts with $10,000.00 cash changing hands.

Viewers looking for a fairytale will be just as disappointed as those looking for hardcore porn. Yes, there is explicit nudity. But it's cold, calculated nudity. Nudity stripped of it's erotic power. Yes, there is a pretty stripper and rich guy willing to pay for love. But he isn't Richard Gere and she isn't Julia Roberts and this isn't Hollywood.

A digital camera does not a movie make but Wayne Wang didn't rely on avant-garde technique alone when he decided to revisit the basic boy-meets-girl story. He simplifies the problem by choosing two people with very little in common and then taking them out of their natural settings and putting them in the unreal world of Las Vegas. The man is a socially inept but financially successful engineer so typical of our times and his character is developed and portrayed very realistically by Peter Saarsgard in a role very different from what he played in Boys Don't Cry. He's got it down even to the careless dressing and awkward laugh. I know - I work in the Bay Area. Molly Parker is equally convincing as the drummer-by-day-stripper-by-night career woman who has such a cool and invincible air about her that it makes quite an impact in the few occasions when she does let her armor down.

It almost seems as if Wang has taken the Hollywood classic Pretty Woman and has decided to deHollywoodize it. And in that he has been quite successful. The graininess of the Blair Witch style digital camera coupled with innovative shots including unexpected close-ups follow no clichés. Equally cliché-free is the screenplay which follows a loosely linear narrative advanced primarily by the sexual encounters between a man and a woman who are placed in the near-equivalent situation of a desert island and come from different worlds. In this, one can discern shades of Last Tango in Paris, except that this movie is set in a more cynical time where love has been deconstructed and is not worth killing for. Sex becomes the center of their world but even as they escape into sex they cannot quite leave their personalities, their dreams, their insecurities behind and that is what ultimately saves them and their story from the mundaneness of a forgettable sexual encounter. Although they go into into the deal for purely selfish reasons - he desiring an escape from Internet porn and she looking for some extra cash - their encounter, like all good stories, becomes something of a journey of self-discovery.

Mention must be made of the attention to detail which makes the setting very believable. The soundtrack is eclectic and follows the local Californian club scene rather than big label network music. And the dialogue is very boy-girl-next-door rather than being made up of grand lines. However, this movie is not everybody's cup of tea. The lack of a discernable narrative in some of the scenes risks losing the viewer's attention. And there's no simple message or tying up of loose ends here. But those who can brave that and the graininess will be rewarded with a contemporary look at love in our times.

"You don't *look* like a stripper..." was the first clue. Director Wang, who clearly OK'd Zalman King/Adrian Lyne film style ad and packaging art, was hardly hiding the reality vs. fantasy (or real vs. fake) themes of his superb dot-com romantic tragedy much past the opening credits.

Wang's use of hand-held camera, grainy 8mm, incandescent lighting color wash, high-definition close ups, and assorted traditional noir and verite style cinematography and direction is a breakthough exploration of digital media.

Vegas visitors brave enough to leave their Strip casino/hotel cocoons during daylight hours will surely be struck by the almost surreal difference between how ugly and unglamorous the city is by day and how other-worldly beautiful after dark. Florence, however, is no Vegas...

Get it? Florence (Italy), is *real*, and every flaw she (the city) may have simply adds to the unearthly beauty she emanates. Whether filmed in handi-cam, Fisher-Price pixelvision, or 70mm IMAX, at high noon or midnight, the beauty of Florence (Italy) is timeless and media-independent. At least in the hands of Wayne Wang, Florence glows with or without the lipstick and latex...I mean neon.

Richard's visit to the Venetian Casino/Hotel near the end of the movie completes the tragic romantic (city) metaphor. The "canals" at the Venetian Hotel are truly as pathetic as the film depicts them.

The problem is, these two tragic lovers have always kept a safe distance away from Florence (Italy), or *reality*, and are tragically resigned to a Vegas-reality. Or a dot-com reality...

Filmed digitally and rendered as cinema verite, even duplicating the "grainy" silver halide crystal image artifact of low light film stock with a digital effect extends the film's theme to the medium communicating the artist's expression.

Great film.

I just wish my many shares of homegrocer.com were as valuable as a single used copy of a DVD of this film....or a single apple from an actual grocer.....

To the best of my knowledge "The Center of the World" was shot on a digital camera. If this is the case, then that was a very wise choice for the material and tone of the same. "The Center of the World" is an intellectual adult's version of "Pretty Woman" (although, I couldn't help but notice a few similarities to Egoyam's "Exotica"). On the most basic level is where we leave "Pretty Woman", however. This film is definitely not for all tastes, but that would be a loss for those folks. "The Center of the World" has a lot to say about human sexuality, loneliness, and money and the simple link between them in this modern-age. It's about the loss of human contact and connection between people in the same room; it's about perception and misjudgment. Additionally, there's a very primal ritual running through the sex scenes in this film that speaks volumes about human evolution versus technological evolution. There's a lot here and I don't want to ruin it for anyone by continuing my rant.