Eros

And a very bad last 1/3 by Michelangelo Antonioni. I saw this movie last night at the Elgin Theatre at the Toronto International Film Festival and people walked out after seeing the Wong Kar Wai and Steven Soderbergh segments. I find it hard to rate this movie as a whole so I'll rate each segment of the movie separately. First, there was Wong Kar Wai's short film, titled "The Hand", starring Gong Li and Chang Chen. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the movie, because to me, this definitely portrays what true love is about. It is a very sad story, told with great camera work and the colors were amazing, thanks to Christopher Doyle, the cinematographer. The lighting, soundtrack, and mood were also very enjoyable and complimented each other wonderfully. I rated this part of the movie a 9/10. Then came Soderbergh's short film "Equilibrium". This was more of a comedy, which was very much welcomed since the first part of the film was so sad. Again, the cinematography here was great too, although the story's plot wasn't as easy to follow as Wong's story. The symbolisms were a bit too much, in my personal opinion, but it was still a great short film. I gave this part a 7/10. Then came Antonioni's short movie, which I don't even remember the name of. The plot was almost nonexistent and to me, it was more of an excuse for porn than anything else. Like my friend said, it was as if Antonioni came to America and asked someone what their impression of foreign film was, and made it into this film. I particularly disliked the excessive amount of nudity in this segment of the film, since to me, it posed no greater meaning or purpose. The dialogue also had some of the cheesiest one liners I've seen since Van Helsing. I rated this part a 4/10. Overall, I'd say this movie was a 7/10 mainly because Wong Kar Wai and Steven Soderbergh pulled the average up.

"Eros" (2004) is the collection of three short films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose"), Steven Soderbergh (segment "Equilibrium") , and Kar Wai Wong (segment "The Hand"). Each film explores the always exiting and mysterious subjects of love, sexuality, and desire.

My favorite is "The Hand" – a sensual, emotional, powerful and very sad story about a young tailor who put the years of unrequited love for a beautiful call girl in an exquisite dress he created for her. He knew the exact measurements from touch. This segment is so great that I am ready to buy a DVD just to be able to see it often. It is a brilliant work of art from one of the greatest working directors now.

Steven Soderbergh's "Equilibrium" is a funny duet between two excellent actors, Alan Arkin as a voyeuristic shrink and Robert Downey Jr. as his patient who has a reoccurring dream about a beautiful woman.

Michelangelo Antonioni's segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose" aka "The Dangerous Thread of Things" has been called the weakest in the trio. Many posters call it garbage, the total waste of time, the soft –porn made by a man who "got old and got horny". I personally did not find it a waste of time and if the man at 92 wants to make a little film that celebrates beauty and femininity – so be it. I feel that Michelangelo's segment is much deeper than it seems - even on the surface it is very attractive to look at.

The initial concept for making this film was to offer three variations on the theme of love from three directors from three cultures. Or is the title 'Eros' more about the erotic than about love? Question unanswered by this triptych of minor works by some superb directors. The end result seems to be three streams of conscious thoughts looking for a reason to make it to the screen. With the brilliance of the three directors one would expect far more than the film delivers.

Wong Kar Wai presents the strongest of the three films in a dark story about a tailor who sublimates his desire for a courtesan (Gong Li) by making clothes for her - a 'servant' who finally reverses his role. The photography and interweaving of the characters is very beautiful to experience.

Steven Soderberg makes a testy little script about an ad man (Robert Downey, Jr) in therapy with a bizarre psychiatrist (Alan Arkin) exploring a recurring sensual dream. Shot is black and white the actors give it their all but the story is silly and becomes boring with all the distractions Soderberg works into the weak plot.

Antonioni attempts to breathe life into the old Italian movies of lover's spats and diversions and comes up with what feels like a script-less little mess of a movie bent solely on see-through blouses and nude cavorting on beaches.

As a triptych the film just doesn't become airborne, despite some very high powered, first rate directors. Much ado about very little. Grady Harp

This is one of the most encompassing films I have seen in a while. Not because we have a chance to savor at once three masters at work, no. Opinions of their mastery will differ after all.

It matters because we have three master fiddlers on the same stage, liberated from the pressure of exerting control over the logistics of an entire project, so each one can singularly shape his present moment from his corner of the stage, a small rhythm, trusting the others to compliment and intone. So even though each segment is structured within itself and harmonical, the whole echoes with the assymetry of spontaneous creation. Wonderful.

So three shorts about eros; albeit not erotic in the sense perhaps inferred by the title, not strictly sensual, rather about the desire to see in that space where the senses come into being. All three are highly architectural essays about that space. All three are about some ineffable palpitation of the heart growing fonder, beating faster. All three improvise transcendence.

The structure of the thing we can attribute to our conventional film culture that always waxes vaguely about the abstract (Antonioni), treats narrative engineering as a subject of dry, academic discourse (Soderbergh), and is generally more comfortable to evaluate memories of beauty and touch (Wong Kar Wai).

I am going to write about these last to first, which is also how they resonated with me.

• The last segment is typical Kar Wai/Doyle fashion, unfolding down the corner from In the Mood for Love; so flowery, arrested breathing, quietly exasperated romance with the musky scents of intimacy in close quarters. Of course Mood only blossomed in hindsight of 2046, and there is no chance for that here. So we get a simple beauty about a simple yearning; a young tailor falls for an elegant woman, both strangers. He measures love for her as the silky fabrics he creates to encase her. She constantly eludes him. All that is finally left is a moment suspended in time. It's okay but the least here for my taste, a matter of some poetry.

• Soderbergh for the middle part. Free from the eyes of Hollywood money-men, he creates what he does best and has repeatedly nested in his more famous stuff; New Wave from the gaps of multiple planes of seeing. A man is recounting to his psychiatrist a recurring dream about a woman, who unseen by his patient all this time keeps looking out the window with a pair of binoculars. The whole thing is set in the 50's and aptly recalls film noir as a shorthand, there are venetian blinds, hats, shadows. Most importantly noirish, a double perspective looking to apprehend the controls of nightmare (or dream as in our case).

The update, a French touch: a third layer at the last moment, the base layer of reality last. Piled on that we have the dream about the woman, purely sensual blues, and the mind inbetween, the Rear Window vignette with the psychiatrist, seeking the mechanisms that control these images. He finds inspiration in the dream to apply in real life, a new motto for an alarm clock, and comes to realize who is the elusive woman. Wonderful, structured stuff.

• Finally going backwards we have Antonioni on his last work, the one master two or three notches above the rest and again wildly misunderstood. Several viewers have commented that his segment is little more than the sexual fantasies of a dirty old man. What narrow-minded bunk. What poor reading skills. To even think that Antonioni would have to grow to be 90 to peek at pert nipples. Oh, there is a shot of a woman standing up on a bed fondling her privates, and more nudity; but it's a fantasy only if you completely miss the shot immediately after that posits the whole structure of the house as this woman of mysterious architecture.

No, what we have here is another contemplation on the cessation of self from Antonioni's large contemplative tradition.

You may have noticed that he all but disappeared after The Passenger. There was the stroke and all that. But beyond that, there was nowhere left to go. He had achieved the utmost that film can aspire to be to my mind; sensing in the present purely with the eye, a full awareness of the world as it comes into being and vanishes again. There is nothing more.

So for his part, he films one last time for old time's sake. He takes us on a reminiscing tour of earlier films as though saying goodbye to the whole thing soon to vanish; a couple wandering the ruins of an affair breaking down (L'Avventura, La Notte), youth bathing naked between rocks (Zabriskie Point), the towering old house (a monastery in L'Avventura, where bells were rung), the sense of a concave reality (Blowup).

So the man takes off to explore this other woman, new sex with her that could rejuvenate a life of exasperation. Of course simply pursuing blind new desire is not the answer, so he disappears from the film. The two women meet on an empty stretch of beach.

Antonioni being the wisest of the three, is the only one who leaves us with something tangible to attain. Film doesn't have to be highly complex to be insightful. It can be a simple passage, no more than a woman dancing naked on a beach. The parting shot sums an entire life in movies, a sage's life. The two women standing next to each other, a little apart, not touching, but aware in each other's presence and their shadows connect. It's the most sublime last shot any filmmaker graced us with.

-Kar Wai, segment The Hand: 5/10. -Soderbergh, segment Equilibrium: 8/10. -Antonioni, segment The Dangerous Thread of Things: 10/10

One part brilliant, one part so-so, one part utter crap. Guess which one is which. OK, I'll help you out. In the order of appearance:

"The Hand" by Wong Kar-Wai is a solid piece of film-making, but nothing special. Let's just say the Master does not break any new ground with yet another short story of unrequited love. We've seen these characters before, they are not that interesting, and the story itself veers too far into melodramatic to my liking.

"Equilibrium" by Soderbergh is a witty, clever little nugget... and you won't soon forget an unorthodox shrink who indulges in a bit of voyerism on the side while treating his twitchy patient (a great appearance by Robert Downey Jr.)

The Whatever It Was Called by Antonioni is so bad, I could not believe my eyes. Well, unless you enjoy watching gorgeous girls writhing on a bed or dancing on the beach - naked. Oh, you think quite a few people would enjoy that? So did Antonioni. The whole thing looked like an extended male fantasy of a Maserati commercial. No characters or plot, not particularly interesting cinematography...It was just boring.

Bottom line, it was a strange idea to bring together three allegedly great directors on a single ticket, and it did not pay off. Go see it for the Soderbergh piece if nothing else. Wong Kar-Wai fans will be slightly disappointed, and Antonioni fans are beyond salvation.