Nell'intimità - Intimacy

You will very, very rarely see a film with such explicit sex made is L.A. Thats because, since long ago American filmmakers worry tons more about their rating and therefore the box office attendance.

"We better not go too far, we'll loose money" is the bottom line in Hollywood. The raw and and utterly believable sex scenes are the symbol in this independent film for the sincerity and genuine attempt by the filmmakers to tell a story about how people might really behave under certain conditions.

That being said, the story line becomes harder to accept as the plot unfolds. Even tho the acting is superb by every player, the more that happened, the more distanced I became. Conflict between characters and their motivation became just more and more unbelievable, even irritating. You see the writer pushing and pushing the storyline until you don't care about the story anymore, instead of being taken in and moved, as one should be. (In spite of the writing, the film is definitely worth seeing and nevertheless refreshing in the face of Star Vehicle Movies, Action Junk, as well as guarded and censored sex scenes that are the standard fare of Hollywood standards today).

This film was made with the sentiment of "Let's make a good movie, no holds barred, no matter what" instead of "Make a movie about whatever you want, but make sure its a hit at the box office".

Intimacy (2001) was co-written and directed by Patrice Chéreau. The movie stars Mark Rylance as Jay, the head barman at a club. Somehow, he has met Claire, played by Kerry Fox. To Jay's surprise, Claire reappears every Wednesday at his apartment to have sex with him. (That's the only way to phrase it. They don't talk, and there's no foreplay. They just tear their clothes off and go at it.) There's plenty of nude scenes of both Fox and Rylance. However, it's not really erotic, because the apartment is so dirty and unkempt that all I could think of was "it's disgusting."

Matters would have apparently continued along in this way, except that Jay wants to know more about Claire. He manages to track her down to a pub/theater, where she's starring in "The Glass Menagerie." This brings him into contact with Andy, Claire's husband, played brilliantly by Timothy Spall.

The plot really begins at this point, and I will carefully avoid explaining what happens next. I won't avoid saying that the plot appeared contrived and, basically, ridiculous. I wasn't familiar with the work of Kerry Fox, but she's an excellent actor. Rylance and Spall are great actors. It's hard to understand just what went wrong with this film. Some reviewers have suggested that director could have made a better movie in France than in England. Maybe we in the English-speaking world think that this bizarre plots works better if the actors are smoking Gauloises and drinking wine, rather than smoking Mayfairs and drinking ale.

If you really want to see this movie, you'll have to decide whether you want to see all the sex (unrated version) or just the suggestion of sex (R-rated version). The movie has no real outdoor scenes, so it will work as well on DVD (which is how we saw it) as it will on the large screen. This isn't a great movie for anyone. If you want porn, buy porn. If you want narrative drama, buy narrative drama. Intimacy promises both, and gives you neither.

I've seen this film in USA and the taste that I felt is quite bitter; not because it was a lousy film, per contra, but because of the way that a man and a woman try desperately to escape from a lonely and abortive life, is so vivid and so authentic. I was tempted to catalogue the sex scenes, too daring but let's face it, this is the reality. Like probably Zola would say "naturalism not hypocrisy". If you want to see this film it's better to leave home all your prejudices about how life should be.

Like most films either adapted from Hanif Kureishi's fiction or having screenplays written by him (`My Beautiful Laundrette', `Sammy And Rosie Get Laid' as well as this film, which lists Kureishi as a co-writer along with Anne-Louise Trividic and director Patrice Chereau), `Intimacy' circles its subject in an indirect manner, never declaring what it's truly about but leaving a distinct impression. This can make for difficult viewing, requiring an inordinate amount of concentration to keep up (and which wears you down after a while) and it only sinks in long after it's over. But that's the film's strong point: the writers prefer to have you draw your own conclusions, with dialogue that forces you to read between the lines of an affair in which both participants seem to be using it to address their individual demons. Chereau and Kureishi are more interested in their characters' circumstances than their actions but it's precisely their circumstances that make their actions compelling. Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox are the lovers (and they're excellent, even though the fact their trysts are presented in explicit detail may overshadow their performances), with Rylance as a bitter bartender who has spontaneously abandoned his family and Fox as a drama teacher stifled in her marriage to a cabbie (Mike Leigh favorite Timothy Spall, also very fine) whom Rylance befriends in an attempt to understand her; it's the tensions that build around the trio that drives the narrative. It's an unhappy yet sensitive film that may distance some audiences and push others into uncomfortable areas they may not want to visit, yet there's no denying its inquisitive, intelligent presence.

A disturbing, theatrical, thought-provoking, difficult-to-watch film which revolves around a sexual relationship between two people who almost never talk to each other. There is passion but no intimacy in this relationship, in fact there is no intimacy between any of the characters in this film. The male character begins to yearn intimacy, but the female character seems content with 'meaningless' sex. Overall the film is a dark and uncomfortable study, well acted but a bit too "arty" for my liking.