|
The Loss of Sexual Innocence review
:. Director: Mike Figgis
:. Starring: Julian Sands, Saffron Burrows
:. Running Time: 1:46
:. Year: 1999
:. Country: USA
|
More like the loss of purpose. This movie sucked. Big time. Let me explain why. Mike Figgis, P.T. Anderson of the overrated Leaving Las Vegas, has put together a string of scenes that look like a sleek fashion shoot and tried to pawn them off as a deep movie. This is not to say that sleek techno driven movies are all bad; some are quite good. There panic ensues when Figgis attempts to make it an intellectual, pretentious, sleek photo shoot/movie. On top of that, some scenes look alarmingly like other movies.
Within all the arty nonsense we are able to discern that one of the stories is about Nic, first as a child in Africa, then as a fat adolescent, next as a horny teenager (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers from the detestable Velvet Goldmine) and then as an adult man (Julian Sands from Boxing Helena). But to go through all this we also have to witness Figgis' version of Adam and Eve. Adam is black and Eve is a scrawny redhead. They emerge from a lake naked (looking suspiciously like a scene from Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica), spend time running around, peeing in front of each other, and eating grass. You know the rest. Eve eats the fruit and then they have graphic, yucky sex. Not exactly biblical, not even remotely interesting. Who knew Adam and Eve looked like Bennetton models? The other sex scenes of this movie are shameless. The most revolting include the scene where Sands has sex with his wife in the kitchen as she chops vegetables. Of course, a lot of this movie is about his frustrated efforts to score. As a teenager, he's caught by a young lass' father.(And that's another moment of thievery. The scene where he catches his dream girl drunk and in bed with another guy and she proceeds to vomit in the crotch of the other guy was also performed by Liv Tyler in Stealing Beauty. Bertolucci is disappointing enough these days, so there's no need to steal from him.) Figgis tries to be fair and show his wife's point of view. So later that night we witness the "Her dream" sequence in which she, clad in black lingerie, enters a nightclub and has sex with the black jazz musician. All in red light, just like bad seventies porn. Please!! In the end, as in Leaving Las Vegas, this is can be boiled down to a vulgar white guy's sexual fantasy.
The most blatant rip-off is in the "Twins" sequence. How Figgis was able to mangle the elegant "The Double Life of Veronique" into a cheap 10 minute music video is beyond the imagination. We can only hope someone will prosecute for this crime. Two twins separated at birth, both played by Saffron Burrows (a fair, heartfelt performance considering what she had to work with), pass each other at the airport. We know they have a special connection because they both cry when they see the same picture of a model with African Blue People in Vogue. (I know, it sounds ridiculous and it is.)
The conclusions that we are to draw at the end of this movie are incomplete. Innocence dies in the form of poor Adam being accosted by Eve and a model being hacked to pieces by the Blue People. The loss of sexual innocence leads to the loss of all innocence that is replaced by mean perverts and violence. That's it? We don't know because 1) the two story lines never blend well together 2) Figgis doesn't answer his own questions. In fact, it's difficult to know exactly what questions he was asking in the first place. There are countless ways to go about dissecting the merits of Christianity vis a vis its relationship to sexuality and this effort is largely ineffectual.
Ay there's the rub. I'm usually a sucker for artsy movies. I make the extra effort, go the extra mile to understand, to find something to agree or disagree with. I am not a blockbuster gal. I am Figgis' target demographic. BUT, when such pretension (and empty pretension at that) is just tossed out like bones to a dog, there has to be at least some meat on them to make them worthwhile. Here the bones are licked clean, and it's infuriating.
Anji Milanovic
 read our Latest Movie Reviews
Movie Reviews since 2012
|
|
