La fin de l'innocence sexuelle

The only thing that makes this painstakingly slow and utterly incomprehensible movie possible to finish in one go is the soundtrack. Otherwise, it's pretty much a typically European pretentious mess.

Absolutely nothing connects to anything, at least not in a reasonable, valid or sufficient manner. Many characters, about which we find out almost nothing, are supposedly connected - but only the director knows how (and even that's questionable, since he was obviously on drugs).

The dialogues are as scarce as I've seen anywhere before: this certainly doesn't help in clarifying things. The scenes with the black man and white woman playing Adam and Eve (so PC), and their subsequent exile from Eden by police with helicopters is straight out of Monty Python, except that this is a deadly serious pretentious drama and not a spoof.

Is there anyone who can watch that scene in which Adam and Eve urinate (we are actually shown the urine leaving the top of his penis), and take that scene seriously? Most of the cast look like they walked straight out of a New York fashion show, and this cheapens the look of the movie substantially. Lars von Trier and his 95-ers must love this garbage.

The warning flag goes up for me when a filmmaker makes a film about filmmaking: that his breadth of life experience does not go beyond his immediate enclave of college buddies reassuring each other that they're brilliant. Of course there are many superb movies about making movies, for example Sunset Boulevard and the '54 remake of A Star is Born, but these films have interesting stories to tell about, and by, people who have lived, and lived somewhere other than film school. Loss of Sexual Innocence does not.

Normally I would applaud the freehand style the director uses in going back and forth between different times in the life of Julian, the main character, but some of his choices in doing so are confusing. When we first meet Julian he is a towheaded five-year-old living in Kenya; in his later youth scenes he appears as a dark-haired, obese teen, and as an adult he is rail-thin and prematurely gray. Morbid obesity is a deeply-affecting, emotionally scarring and virtually incurable condition (the "cure" rate is two percent, literally half the chance of leading an arguably normal life as has a heroin addict). The fact that Figgis, the author/director, simply wrote 100 pounds out of the story and reintroduced the character as a thin adult is a cold betrayal of the writer's lack of emotional depth or knowledge of the human condition. We're being told the life story of a character by a writer who doesn't know as much about life as we do. The changing hair color could be explained -- it really does happen to people -- but it hinders the audience who's trying to decide if these three actors are the same character, or if they are separate characters unknown to each other. Another issue that is not addressed throughout the film is, are we still in Kenya? If these nondescript urban and suburban scenes are in fact a foreign country by virtue of a caption at the bottom of the screen that says Kenya, then what is the point of setting the scenes in a faraway country?

Eventually (but don't hold your breath) Julian's story vignettes, plus those of some other characters, converge in a single plot wherein they go off to some location to make their film, but the trip results in some very physical repercussions among both central and ancillary characters. Now that the film, at this point, has condescended to tell a traditional story, we never do find out if the injured people recover.

I'm reminded of a couple of the later films of Joseph Losey (Dark Ceremony; The Go-Between), who teased us by meting out small bits of the story here and there and not telling us everything, apparently never realizing himself that he didn't have that much to say.

One final observation: The use of the word "sexual" in the title and the appearance of naked people on the poster artwork are apparently designed to draw crowds by implying, by virtue of the film's title somehow relating this story to sexuality, that the film is therefore sexy.

Don't be fooled.

I do not understand how one can call this a bad movie. I like it from the first up to the last scene. Beautiful pictures. Sensual narrated by a very talented director. I guess you have to be a sensual human being to feel sympathy for this movie. I feel lucky that i do.

Mike Figgis is an innovative director. This film was made before his other, more daring movie, "Timecode" in which he worked with a split screen in which the action could be seen happening at all times in all four sections. This film is also full of symbolism that will elude viewers. We don't think the director wanted to lose, no pun intended, the audience.

The action in this film is seen through the eyes of Nic at different stages of his life. As the movie opens, he appears in the form of a child Nic and he makes another visit at the end of the movie, perhaps to watch our reaction. The child has intelligent eyes; he appears to be looking at our soul, or perhaps he is telling us this was his own story. The film that doesn't follow a linear narrative.

Mr. Figgis composed the incidental music. He also includes well known piano pieces from composers like Beethoven and Chopin that plays well with the images on the screen. The real coup of the director was to employ Benoit Delhomme as the cinematographer of this droll story that follows Vic from childhood. Mr. Delhomme photographs the natural locations with such care that it might prove a distraction for the viewer.

Some interesting actors were engaged to give life to this sophisticated look about the loss of innocence. This is a sensual movie that relies on the openness in which the director wanted to show. Julian Sands is Vic, the young boy of the story, now an adult and a film director. Saffron Burrows is seen in a double role; she is a ravishing woman! Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Vic as a young man. Kelly MacDonald is seen as Susan. Hanne Klintoe and Femi Ogumbanjo are seen as Adam and Eve as they are placed on the garden of eden and when they are thrown out from it after having taste the forbidden fruit. John Cowey is Vic as a child in a non speaking but highly effective part. Rosie DePalma, a Spanish actress with an amazing face, is seen as a blind woman in a riveting scene.

Like it or not, Mike Figgis is not a director to dismiss easily because he is an original.

Although the images were very beautiful and creative, they didn't link together in any cogent manner, sometimes even taking away from the movie. The editing is very poor, making the movie seem ten times slower than it was. The themes were an attempt at universality, but the poor direction and lack of dialogue just made it alienating. I was very disappointed because the trailer made this movie look intelligent, lush, and fertile, which it isn't at all.