27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
FATHERS AND SONS....GREENAWAY STYLE, December 11, 2002
This review is from: 8 1/2 Women (DVD)
Typically bizarre and challenging Greenaway film about a man whose wife suddenly dies and can't get past the grief stage. His son moves in with him and they "reestablish" their relationship in a most unorthodox way. Literally. So the son concocts a way to help his father snap out of it. They turn the father's estate into a brothel of sorts with a strange array of women they "collect". This creates a rather Fellini-esque atmosphere and causes some friction among the ladies as well as a couple of their deaths. One woman challenges the rules and turns the tables on the men leading to the father's ultimate death wish and the son's turn to grieve. Greenaway allows the film to run from outlandish black comedy to sadly depressing---a gamut that kind've negates everything we've seen and experienced thus far. There's ample male nudity, bizarre costumes, a truly odd turn from Amanda Plummer as one of the women, striking color and rampant symbolism throughout which makes it a feast for the eyes. If you're a Greenaway fan it's an unusual ride. But I wouldn't recommend it for first time viewers who may find it heavy going.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very challenging film, June 10, 2002
When I consider the state of sex in American films today, "American Pie 2" comes to mind. The sex here is treated in the usual leering, juvenille manner. All of the people are young, and it's the women who are expected to disrobe, and hint at lesbian encounters. The scene where the two coeds demand that the two men kiss each other before doing each other treats anything from this norm as aberrant behavior. As long as the subject is treated in this cookie-cutter manner, our country will show sex, and not actually explore it as the strong human emotion it is.
The strong point of "8 1/2 Women" is that is challenges our thoughts of what sexuality can be in ways that are ignored in this country. The movie hits the ground running as we encounter the two main characters, a middle-aged man and his twenty-something son shortly after the older man's wife dies. We not only see full-frontal male nudity, a rarity in this country. But what is also somewhat shocking is not that they are interested in man-on-man encounters, but encounters between father and son. Sons wanting to sleep with their mothers have been explored before, but dad and son is something to think about.
After this eye-opening scenario, the movie continues to challenge. Faced with seemingly unlimited wealth, the two decide to build a sexual playground to try and appease what must be a major league middle-age crisis by the father. They encounter and recruit a handful of women to come live with them and play out their fantasies.
This is also where the film has it's strong points. The closest I can remember to this film is "Sirens", the Australian film that featured an artist surrounded by nubile females, among them Elle McPherson. But even that film was probably too hot for America to touch, and even this film filled it with very good looking women of the same cut. "8 1/2 Women" brings in all kinds of women from beautiful to hideous, dominent to submissive. Once again, it shows that while Playboy magazine shows an attractive cut of women, it is not the only source for sex in the world.
I'm not saying I agree with all the choices, and they are diverse enough where most people also would not go for all of them. But that's the good point of the movie. By busting through cinematic stereotypes of how we think about sex, it shows that it is a subject that can be pursued by anyone, not just the "beautiful people" class.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed Effort From A Great Filmmaker, April 12, 2005
Peter Greenaway's films are always a challenge, even for his most devoted admirers. I am a member of that group. I traveled 90 minutes each way to see his new film '8 1/2 Women'. His films are incredibly (really, an understatement) complex, both visually and narratively. Like most filmmakers, he has his ups ('The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover', 'The Pillow Book', 'Drowning By Numbers' and 'The Draughtsman's Contract') and his downs ('A Zed and Two Naughts', 'Belly of An Architect'). Unfortunately, '8 1/2 Women' is not one of his best.
I read a review of the film that stated it was his most accessible in years. Yes, I can see that. This means that Greenaway has stripped away six or seven layers of narrative that usually happen concurrently in his best films. He has dumbed down the visual style while retaining a story that is not very focused.
We seem to be experiencing a bit of a trend. Some of the most intelligent filmmakers are dumbing down their work to reach a new audience while dissatisfying their core audience. Woody Allen's latest film is a farce with none of the depth he is known for. The result? 'Small Time Crooks' will probably be his most successful film in years. Robert Towne created an overly simplistic blueprint for the stunts in 'Mission Impossible 2'. The result? The screenplay works, but the audience is told the core of the mission six times. Now Greenaway directs a film with one layer of narrative, robbing his own film of the richness and depth he has done before. What's next? Martin Scorcese directing Leonardo DiCaprio? Oh, that's actually happening.
If you have never seen a Peter Greenaway film, and most of you probably haven't, a little background is probably in order. Greenaway is a painter and spent some time doing set design for operas. He brings both of these sensibilities to his films. When the film is good, it is a glorious mixture of all of these elements creating truly beautiful films. His longtime cinematographer, Sacha Vierny, is a great asset to the visual style. He also likes to experiment with words and narrative. For instance, the beginning of 'The Pillow Book' combined a layer of film that had Japanese Calligraphy, the writing of the Pillow Book, and two separate scenes going on on top of that. Your eye is always watching something. Your mind is always working. In 'Drowning By Numbers', the numbers 1 through 100 appear in the actual film in some form or another. In 'The Cook, The Thief...', each separate room in an elaborate restaurant has a color scheme of it's own, affecting the color of the character's clothing. '8 1/2 Women' makes a brief attempt at combining various elements, showing pieces of the screenplay with insets of pachinko parlors. The rest of the film is set in a single estate. Frankly, most of the film appeared grainy.
A rich Geneva banker and pachinko parlor owner mourns the loss of his wife. His son tries to comfort his father and suggests, after watching Fellini's '8 1/2', that they fill the house with a harem of women. This will help the father to experience the variety of sexual activity that he has recently discovered and also make the house seem less empty. The pachinko parlors are really a very weak point of the story. It seems to merely serve as a method for Greenaway to introduce Asian females into the story line.
As the father and son populate the harem (with the likes of Amanda Plummer, Toni Collette, Vivian Wu and Polly Walker), they talk incessantly. In most of Greenaway's works, the characters have lengthy conversations, but they were far more interesting. He seems to be trying to shock us with words rather than images in this film. Yes, there is a lot of nudity, both male and female, but it doesn't shock. The discussions they have concerning beastiality, incest, etc., are simply boring.
His films also take a while to make it to the US. Because of this, he frequently can attract up and coming stars to appear in his films, usually nude, before they are really famous. As I mentioned, Toni Collette (Best Supporting Actress nominee for 'The Sixth Sense', 'Muriel's Wedding') appears in the film as a Swedish nun. In 'The Pillow Book', Ewan McGregor played a central part. He has also had Ralph Fiennes and Julia Ormond in his films.
Greenaway has created some of the best films I have ever seen and experienced. Greenaway is a master filmmaker and definitely deserves a larger audience. Unfortunately, this film isn't that good.
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