Erotique

Four directors (Lizzie Burden (USA), Monika Trent (Germany), Ana Maria Magalhães (Brazil) and Clara Law (China)) present four low budget short stories about eroticism. The American one ('Let's Talk About Sex') is about a girl who participates in auditions trying to have a chance as actress, and works in an agency of sex by phone. She gets horny with a client and meets him. The German one ('Taboo Parlor') is about two lesbians having one night stand with a handsome man. The Brazilian one ('Final Call') is about a young teacher moving from the country city of Barbacena to Rio de Janeiro by train, to get a plane to New York. She is almost raped by two guys and saved by a photographer. Then she has an affair with her rescuer. And he Chinese one ('Wenton Soup') is about the cultural differences between a Chinese young woman, who live in Hong Kong, and a young man descendant of Chinese, who lives in Australia. The guy, in accordance with the definition of his uncle, looks like a banana: yellow outside, white inside. I do not like this type of tales. The Brazilian one, for example, is completely fake: spoken in English, many tourists landscape of Rio de Janeiro, the sexy and with a very Brazilian type Claudia Ohana naked, all of these together seems to be a 'fake product for exportation'. I do not like porno, but I believe would be better off the viewer spending time watching X-rated movie than this type of movie, which has lots of insinuation of kink sex and no penetration. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Erotique"

One of the very few film anhtologies directed exclusively by women: unfortunately, only one of them, Lizzie Borden, manages to tell a story in the allocated (short) time. Her episode is funny, relatable, and sensual (***) The second segment starts with an intimate lesbian wake-up scene involving the sublime Camilla Soeberg who sets the screen ablaze, but after that it goes nowhere...slowly (**1/2) The third episode is odd, incoherent and spoiled at the very start by a near-rape scene; it is also awkwardly filmed in English, when it should have been in Portugese (**). The fourth is the most "arty" and explicit, but also the most boring of the bunch (*1/2). The overall rating is hovering between a 5 and a 6 out of 10, but I decided to go with a 6 mostly on the strength of Borden's contribution.

This is like nothing you've ever seen before as it's uniqueness makes it a standalone adult sex pic, and it's uniqueness in it's story, is what I love. I think this movie has been harshly criticized. It's three stories are worlds apart from each other. I found this movie to be highly erotic, indulgent, funny, but has a lot to say. There's a eminent danger we feel, as to where the engrossing characters take us. The first story involves an independant, hot young Latino, sex phone worker/struggling actress, and we have a Theresa Randall/Girl 6 atmosphere. Did Spike Lee, see this by any chance. And yes, she's fallen in love with one of her customers, a younger family man (Bryan Cranston) of all people. Our actress creates some pretty erotic fantasies too. Let's move onto number which has a shock ending. Priscilla Barnes, oh my god. How hot. Her friend's not bad either, and we have the hunky male completing the menois de trois. The erotic meter goes up, drawing on Zalman King Territory. The third, strangest of them all, involves a young Asian couple, but the better left unsaid. You have to see it for yourself. This is a well made, acted, and sadly obscure film, you should seek out. Don't be swayed, by other reviewers. Make up your own mind.. Oh, yeah, did I mention Priscilla Barnes. Wow!

Before Bryan Cranston was the lovable Hal on "Malcolm In The Middle," he paid his dues making movies like this. I haven't even seen the whole movie yet, only BC's part. But that segment ("Let's Talk About Love") alone has already made this movie worth the six bucks I paid for it. This may not be BC's masterpiece, but it's worth watching to see what kind of roles he played before "MITM." Check it out, just make sure the kids aren't around...

For the record, I saw the version that includes the Brazil segment. That said, I want to know why every segment is in English, despite most of them taking place outside the US. It's jarring to see Germans, Brazilians and Hong Kong people not speaking their own languages.

As for the movie itself, it's OK, not great. Lots of nudity but it leaves a lot of the sex up to your imagination. Neat seeing Bryan Cranston in an early role.