Otto donne e 1/2

I went in expecting the worst and left completely turned around. 8 1/2 Women doesn't hold a candle to The Pillow Book, The Cook the Thief..., or his earlier Drowning By Numbers, but I had fun! It was almost like Peter Greenaway does Woody Allen (wanna talk about film makers who purge their sexual fantasies on screen!) With the exception of a couple of scenes, the visual style of this film is stark and simple (much like Drowning...) and relied heavily on smart dialogue, which at times got a bit over the top, intellectually speaking, but kept the film going. I never got bored with it, I never got too disgusted, and even if I can't recommend it to most of the people I know, I still feel it's a strong feature.

Now, even though this is Greenaway Lite, it still isn't for people who didn't like any of his earlier films. But even if you only liked The Cook The Thief, you should give this one a chance. Forget that you have hang ups about sex and sit back and watch the perversion unfold! Pure, sick fun!

The 1st third of the film is densely textured with text and image overlays (as in his last few films). The effect reminds me of nothing more than the collages of Tom Wesselman and to some extent the paintings of Sigmar Polke. The interactions of the many layers is quite masterful & I especially like the way that everything, including actors dialogue and plot are treated equally as texture.

Each section of the film begins with a text overlay of the scene description from the script. The full text is never on screen long enough to be read in its entirety. This reinforces the sense of story and dialogue as texture... of text as texture.

The 2nd third of the film moves away from the visual overload mode as the theme of collecting sexual fantasies (represented by the women in the harem built by the Father and Son) comes into focus. It reminds me a bit of the collage-novels of Max Ernst in that it hangs a string of reveries on the framework of linear narrative... but the narrative is really just an excuse for manipulating images.

The 3rd third becomes a bit turgid, probably because the pattern of collecting women (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8...) has become obvious by this time. In fact the film shows itself for what it really is.... a catalogue of desires. It is not particularly erotic though it represents a list of fantasies... whatever the subject is, it still retains the character of a list. This has the effect normalizing the erotic. One no longer questions whether the pleasures depicted are "normal" or "perverse"... they all become equal... a decorative pattern.... in much the same way that the dialogue resembles a complex pattern more than it does naturalistic speech.

In many ways it reminds me of De Sade's "120 days of Sodom" (an old Surrealist favorite) which I also find to be as un-erotic as a list. As one of the characters in the film states: (it simply) "follows the fantasies to their logical conclusion". It seems to be more of an intellectual exercise aimed at unshackling desire... it does not seem to be aimed at provoking desire (in the viewer).

There are, however, many poetic passages. During a scene in which one of the women is shaved bald the father and son pick up clumps of hair and attempt to describe the smell:

"it smells like canaries...'

"like brown sugar taken out of a damp paper bag..." &tc.

The images are also poetic. My favorite is a japanese woman clad in a very red kimono singing nasally in front of a very blue door & next to a very pink pig.

The sons (apparent) ability to invoke earthquakes (orgasms?) is also an interesting poetic touch.

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.

Frederico Fellini's "8 1/2" is a movie this one is theoretically inspired by. There are consistent references to it in this film, some subtle, and some glaringly obvious. One should take this into account so that it will not hamper one's voluntary suspension of disbelief, though this movie definitely stands on its own if the viewer has never seen "8 1/2".

Voluntary is, perhaps, an inappropriate word. This movie takes disbelief, which should certainly be present, and suspends it for you, in a most amusing way. The film may well attempt to say something deep about human nature, and the interaction between a fickle heart which has lots of love to give and a bored brain with so many thoughts - but it doesn't say it so loud that you can't just sit back and enjoy the picture. Some scenes are funny to all; some scenes may cause you to be the only hysterical person in the theater. In any case, it's well worth the ticket or rental cost. Some male nudity is present, though no more than the average British movie containing male nudity. No sex scenes are overly graphic, though one should definitely have an open mind going into the movie in order to enjoy it. If you didn't feel a significant need to leave the theater during "Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes," which I was last week, you should be able to thoroughly enjoy this film.

(Lighting designers watch for the Kabuki scene; it won awards in Europe and definitely looks very cool.)

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.