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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Gerard Depardieu should stick to urinating on airplanes., August 26, 2011
I've seen my fair share of art films. In fact I've seen way too many of them. I'm a product of the 70's and 80's art school brigade...the kind of places where the instructor thought foreign art films spoke to us about the meaning of life. Yeah, I've seen them all from every single continent...the good, the bad and the ugly. I've also seen most of Marco Ferreri's films. I can't say that I enjoyed any of them. This one stinks to high heaven. I could barely stay awake watching this slop. I won't even attempt to try and get into the "meaning" of this garbage. All I know is that I wanted to shove that damn whistle down Gerard Depardieu's throat. Pretentious is too nice a word to use for this one. How about calling it a big pile of steaming CRAP! I don't even need to tell you what the story is about because it just limps along from one boring scene to another. It means absolutely nothing to me because it's completely dull and uninteresting. Even the monkey was boring. I can say that the scene with James Coco falling over and bursting into flames was rather funny...and I know that wasn't the intent...but it was funny just the same. The most shocking thing about this 1977 film was seeing the twin towers still standing. I certainly could do without seeing the naked Depardieu prancing about waving his private parts in my face. Was there anything enjoyable in this tedious experiment to torture the audience? Well yeah, there was the naked body of Gail Lawrence (aka Abigal Clayton...star of many golden age pornographic films...YUM). She has a fine chest and a cute face and I guess that's nothing to sneeze at. Too bad the whole movie didn't revolve around her. Now that would keep me awake...heh heh heh! In fact, why don't you just skip this moronic mess and go straight to "7 Into Snowy" or the "Coming of Angels"...you'll be glad you did. You can thank me later.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant symbolism but boring, January 2, 2008
This review is from: Bye Bye Monkey (DVD)
In a nutshell, this movie is about the changing gender roles. One reviewer suggested watching this on a rainy afternoon and I agree. It will certainly make you nod off and maybe then all of the rich symbolism will make sense as you sleep - that, or give you horrible nightmares.
I enjoy great films by Antonioni, Pasolini and the rest who embody symbolism at its best (in my opinion) but this one....not one of my favorites. I gave it four stars for originality but subtracted one for the long stretches of boredom and lack of real plotline (it's just one weird scene after another). Here's my take on the film for what it's worth.
We meet Lafayette (Gerard Depardieu) as he wakes in this nightmarish vision of NYC of the 70s. He makes his way to his job (stage hand for a feminist group that does performance art) carrying a large steel pipe to ward off the people patrolling in white hazardous suits? Which I took to mean that the world would be a very dangerous place for men if feminists really did get their way?? The women revile Lafayette in all his primitive maleness. They discuss a topic for their next performance: rape. They decide to rape Lafayette to prove women are just as capable of violence. This scene actually shows how dissimilar men and women really are - the actual act and the result are different. For certain viewers, please note that there is full frontal nudity of both sexes in this film. Lafayette's group of friends are a ragtag bunch of older men and one woman (she is included because she still likes men - she keeps a painting she admires of a male, her children will not visit until she takes it down). They all hold the same view of admiring the past but the past is decaying all around them. A giant King Kong figure lies rotting on the beach. This group of misfits discover a baby monkey nuzzling the dead giant ape (just like nurturing and traditional mothering roles will die out from rampant feminism). Lafayette intends to raise this monkey despite warnings that he should not and could not take care of it. These scenes of Lafayette attempting to raise the monkey made me think that the same awkwardness and clumsy parenting would result if men tried to raise children on their own. There is also the whole constant whistle blowing thing by Lafayette. It scares away the rats? An underground society of rats? and since he blew the whistle at the most ardent feminist of the performance group, then she too is a rat?
The whole film is ripe with symbolism and all of this brilliant imagery is thrown at the viewer in an almost provoking manner but you need to wade through a lot of boring scenes to get to the interesting bits. Great haunting visuals but not enough foundation was build to form a cohesive story. I recommend this film to diehard film fans who want to edify their symbolism viewing.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Absurdism to the T!, August 8, 2001
Is it another world, or our world gone mad? Ferreri has quite an imagination, especially his use of juxtaposition: a rotting carcass of King Kong, a wax museum where James Coco reenacts parts of history, and an underground society where rats prevail. Depardieu, who's lines are badly dubbed, manages to get through this yarn uncomfortably gripping a chimp where he found beside the dead Kong. Mastroianni is always at his best, altho this time presenting a more cartoonish characterization. However, despite the exotic idiosyncrasies, this film can be rather dull at moments. Nevertheless, I enjoyed a large percentage of this movie, ad hominem the ambiguous finale which may help clarifies the film's bizarre symbolism. Watch this one on a rainy day.
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