Boring... more of the same from Catherine Breillat.
I suppose it is theoretically possibly that a viewer could be "shocked" or "enthralled" by this movie if they had never seen anything outside the Hollywood movie and certainly no previous Catherine Breillat movies. But even then, I am skeptical.
This movie is boring, and it has a "been there, done that" feel from Breillat. This movie's problems are indicative of what I feel is the larger problem plaguing "art house" cinema the last couple of years. They have become as formulaic and thoughtlessly perfunctory as your most paint-by-numbers Hollywood romantic comedy. Too many movies that are supposed to be providing intelligent and thought-provoking alternatives to what elitists call "The Hollywood swill" are not doing that. Instead, the art house formula has grown distressingly predictable lately. Build a movie around graphic sex and/or violence and let the controversy fly, if anyone actually cares. Maybe some people will jump to your defense and declare your film a masterpiece.
Even more distressing though, is the even more prevalent art-house formula of atrributing a bizarre (often sexual or neurotic) character trait and then spending a dreary movie length watching the character fuss and moan and generally be an introverted, narcissistic, navel-gazer over said trait.
Example. In Breillat's superior film "Romance" a woman feels cut off and empty and sexually and emotionally unsatisfied, so she has degrading sex. Fine. But wait a minute. Didn't we see this in "Intimacy" and "The Piano Teacher" (the latter being the best of all these films)?
And therein lies the problem. It's a formula, just like "Legally Blonde" or "30 Going On 30." It becomes even more readily apparent when you watch these films, and other films by Breillat as consecutively as you can. If we are taking some of these French films at face value (which I would not advise) we could come to the conclusion, that in France, it is the worst thing on earth to be sexually unsatisfied or repressed. Because, like Breillat, these characters (with the exception of The Piano Teacher) seem to monomaniacal, uninteresting sex zombies. The viewer is treated to "I'm sexually unsatisfied/repressed. Let us wring our hands over this tragedy and fling melodrama around like nobody's business." You know the like. People end up mutilating their genitals, or waxing pseudo-philosophical on the ugliness of the female vessel, or having rough, degrading sex, etc.
You reach a point where you simply don't care any more. Go ahead, watch a lot of Breillat films as close together as you dare. At the end of them, you simply will not give a damn about these overwrought characters and their sexual neuroses. Honestly. You will begin to wonder: don't these characters have better things to worry about? Or better yet: why should I care or even watch such vapid, one-dimensional characters?
The answer to that question is: I don't know. But I do know art house cinema has to do better than give us characters with bizarre character traits and then muddle over them endlessly with precious little else to work with.
As for Breillat, "Anatomy Of Hell" shows that, short of American director-voyeur of "kids being bad and having sex, ready, set, be shocked, middle America who's been living under a rock" Larry Clark (a man content to make the same movie over and over and over again) she may be the most one-track, one-trick, monomaniacal director in the world. She is easily the equal of Woody Allen when it comes to working out your personal neuroses on the screen and calling it art. But at least Allen could take the audience to a larger variety of places. With Breillat, it's just sex, sex, and sex, and "Anatomy of Hell" is no different.
With regards back to my condemnation of art house cinema as too formulaic in some regards now, it is quite laughable that a mainstream Hollywood film like "Closer" (you don't get more mainstream than Jude Law, Julia Roberts, and Natalie Portman at the writing of this), has better dialogue, is more incisiveness and vastly more intelligent, interesting, and ultimately, shocking (shocking us with intellectually brutal truths, not cheap physical acts) than "Anatomy of Hell." I find it laughably because the movies on the fringe, the art house cinema, is supposed to be more intelligent and tell us more than the bloated Hollywood mainstream, or so film elitists would have us think.
Well, "Anatomy Of Hell" soundly proves them wrong. The characters are preposterous and boring. From its ridiculously formulaic and a postmodern style that was dated a decade ago, the main characters of course have no names. Yes, yes, it doesn't take a Michael Bay fan to read into this. The man is a misogynistic straw man to be easily knocked over by women. His character is tantamount to lampooning Archie Bunker and saying "Take THAT Republicans!" He finds the female genitals disgusting and likens them to a bird squashed in the film (and that is just delightful, isn't it?).
The movie is absurdly heavy-handed, bowed by the force of its own artificial weightiness. If you want inane discussion of the war of the sexes that is almost laughably overwrought, made all the more unbelievable by its own strident seriousness, sounding like something written by a deadly earnest, deadly pretentious 1970s college student, you've come to the right place.
I also find the editorial review laughable. It says something to the effect of this movie "pushing the boundaries of film" or some such thing. How ludicrous. Director Breillat actually pushed the envelope on shocking sexual imagery back in 1976 with "Une Vraie Jeune Fille," or "A Real Young Girl," a far more shocking and graphic (and better, with more substance and better supported messages) movie than this one. 30 years later, and Breillat hasn't moved one bit - she's jogging in place. What was shocking, interesting, bold, and innovative in 1976 is now dated. It shows how little her filmmaking has grown (and in the ways it has regressed) that in terms of "pushing the envelope" on sexual politics and identity she's been upstaged by herself nearly 30 years earlier.
Furthermore, some of the best ground in "Anatomy Of Hell" was covered in superior fashion in Breillat's "Romance" and "Sex Is Comedy." Now, neither of those movies are great, but "Romance" is a solid 3 star movie. Even the ground it just touches upon does better work with the material than a half hour devoted to the same subject in "Anatomy of Hell." After watching the movie, you basically haven't made a journey since the beginning. Like the characters, you're left with an empty experience that has shown or accomplished nothing.
So, in conclusion, this movie fails as art, fails in all of its objectives except perhaps repugnance, and it certainly fails as entertainment. I do not recommend it.
nasty nasty
First off she is in a gay bar if my eyes weren't decieving me. Thats where she met the man to watch her when she was unwatchable. If you like nasty crap to watch i recommend this for you. I don't want to give away any of the movie sceens and ruin your experience, but i will say this much she starts her period, and he gets a taste.....this is in french, but it does have english subtitles. I am referring to the DVD.
One of the most explicit non-porn movies...
Warning - this movie is not for the faint hearted. It is the most explicit unrated movie I've seen. Very sexual, but not really in a titilating way. Some scenes are very disturbing. Only recommended if you like arthouse movies that push the boundries of modern film making.
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The sex scenes were some of the best I've seen because they were graphic yet very realistic. The story was touching and honest. If you're an adult who enjoys a realistic story that is very hot, you will definitely enjoy this gem. Watch and enjoy! More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mark Rylance - Kerry Fox Director(s): Patrice Chéreau DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Bernardo Bertolucci DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The youngsters (sixteen y/o male and thirty y/o female) are highly desirable and the gradual seduction interesting; however, the betrayal at the station left me cold and reminded me too much of personal experiences.
I kept wondering what is the real story here. There doesn't seem to be one. It is merely an indulgence in titillation; and within those limitations this film is no better than so many others. It did not move me or make me feel anything in particular. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Catherine Breillat DVD Release Date: Released the 18 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Sex and sunlight are on ample display in Betty Blue, director Jean-Jacques Beineix's passionate look at mad love. (Every French director is contractually required to make at least one movie about l'amour fou.) It begins at the seashore, where handyman and failed novelist Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) has his life electrified by Betty, a woman whose sense of abandon frequently tips over into the pathological. This was the role that introduced gap-toothed, voluptuous Beatrice Dalle to the world, and neither Dalle nor the world has ever quite recovered. Traces of Beineix's preciousDiva are still present, though this is a darker and more memorable ride, especially in the three-hour "version integrale" that restores an hour of footage. Its copious nude scenes are a drawing card, but... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jean-Hugues Anglade - Béatrice Dalle Director(s): Jean-Jacques Beineix DVD Release Date: Released the 12 October 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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