Desejo Selvagem

Once upon a time a film would tell you a story. If something in the story was extremely sordid, bloody or harrowing the director would miss this part out whilst at the same time allowing you to work out what was happening or had happened through sound or consequence or symbolism. This allowed a far wider audience to see films with really quite important messages.

Here we have the opposite method. Put together the saddest, most painful or just dull aspects of a film that would once have been tastefully left out, and challenge the audience to start trying to imagine the story. We find we can do it that way, being the imaginative creatures we are and having done the work we're pretty much told anyway gradually, but I for one found I didn't really want to. This film made me think... It made me think I'd rather be sat in front of Lethal Weapon. Now that is not good.

I'm not really into artsy films with disjointed stories and long symbolic passages I'm supposed to mull over. The description on the DVD package made it sound like it was going to be much more exciting and sexy than it was. I thought the character progression for the woman was too abrupt. It was just too much of a string of individual scenes for me.

For some reason, as they were breaking into the costume shop the screen turned black and I thought my DVD player had stopped but the time counter was still moving. I fast-forwarded through more black, all of a sudden color bars flashed on and the scene began again but a few seconds back from where it was when it went black. Looked like a bad editing job. Yet another disappointing rental for me.

I saw this movie without knowing what to expect. But from the beginning to the end, the movie grabs your attention and never lets go.It does so with an engrossing story line and gripping eroticism.In my opinion, this is truly one of the best original stories I have ever seen.

The acting in the film is great. All the actors are natural and believable. Emmanuel Xuereb, with the right amount of 5 o'clock shadow and sunken cheeks, is the perfect Gabe. He is both sad and so so kinky at the same time. I felt like I really cared about Gabe during the film. His pain seems to reach out from the movie screen and grabs my heart. And everyone can relate to Irene; the slightly bored working woman who desires some adventure. It is the kind of connection that makes this movie special.

I watched this with my boyfriend and he loved it as well. I recommend this movie whole heartedly

If you don't like to be spoon fed a story and instead, enjoy piecing the story together yourself, you will take great pleasure in a film like EROSION.

I saw the film at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. It opens in the middle of the story without the traditional set up. It threw me off a little at first because I didn't know anything about the characters or their conflicts or relationships. Nevertheless, after about 10 minutes, I realized why the story was told this way. Without an upfront setup, I as an audience really got to use my instinct to follow the characters, to feel their pleasure and pain, and to experience what they're going through, without passing on judgments, making assumptions, or knowing where I'm going as a participant. My favorite scene is the costume shop scene where Gabe, the lead character, delivers his monologue on his philosophy of life and the rules of Erosion. That's when I really felt the emotional connection with the character and started to really appreciate the director's choice of storytelling.

This film demands the audience's full attention, as well as participation. If you invest enough of your time and attention following the story, the reward is definitely memorable.

I was very glad to have the opportunity to watch this independent film at the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

The film was powerful and well made and the acting was excellent. It's an unexpected and unusual story portraying some very powerful emotions. I look forward to seeing it again and maybe can then catch many things that the director/writer carefully arranged and I missed the first time.

I would recommend it to everyone who enjoys a good film of gripping story lines and I also recommend the director's earlier film: Dreamers, it's touching in a very different way.