Eros

[MacGuffin]

Erotic Homage to Antonioni Unveiled at Venice

Filmmaking greats Michelangelo Antonioni, Steven Soderbergh and Wong Kar Wai unveiled at the Venice Film Festival on Friday their seductive trilogy "Eros," devoted to eroticism and desire.

In the film, which is also a homage to the ailing 91-year-old Antonioni by the two internationally acclaimed young directors, each takes a unique approach to the theme in separate vignettes.

"What motivated me to do this film was Michelangelo Antonioni, who had been the guiding light for me and filmmakers of my generation," said Kar Wai, creator of the sci-fi romance "2046" and arthouse favorite "In the Mood for Love."

In the first vignette, "The Hand" Hong Kong's Kar Wai weaves an erotic story about a tailor and a courtesan played by Gong Li with sumptuous images and rainy, dark sets.

Soderbergh's "Equilibrium," on the other hand, is a perverse comedy starring Robert Downey Jr. as a 1950s New York ad agent who visits a psychiatrist to unravel his mysterious erotic dreams and unblock his creativity.

Initially, Spain's Pedro Almodovar had been lined up to take part in the project, but in the end, the award-winning U.S. director of "Traffic" and "Sex, Lies and Videotape" stepped in.

"I wanted my name on a poster with Michelangelo Antonioni," an irreverent Soderbergh said in the production notes.

Finally, Antonioni, one of Italy's most influential film directors and the cinematic father of modern angst and alienation, offers a meditation on the gap between men and women in "The Dangerous Thread of Things."

The story is set in the beautiful Tuscan countryside and is the most sexually explicit of the three stories.

Antonioni's 60-year career includes Oscar-nominated "Blowup" and the internationally acclaimed "L'Avventura" (The Adventure).

Despite a crippling stroke in 1983 which robbed him of his speech, the Italian director is still working.

"It was very exciting to work with all those people who made this film. Thanks for having given Michelangelo many days of life," said his wife Enrica.

Antonioni's deliberately slow-moving and oblique movies are not always crowd pleasers, but films such as "L'Avventura" turned him into an icon for directors like Kar Wai and Martin Scorsese, who has described him as a poet with a camera.

[ono]

I can't believe more people aren't excited about this flick.  (Or maybe they are -- they're just speechless.)  It should be brilliant.

[SiliasRuby]

Woah, I mean...Woah, that article has me extremely pumped up to see this....

[MacGuffin]

Wong Kar-wai Dominates Uneven "Eros"
by Peter Brunette/indieWIRE

*READ AT OWN RISK*

With the exception of Wong Kar-wai's contribution, the new three-part compilation film "Eros" is, alas, anything but erotic. That wouldn't necessarily be an insurmountable barrier to enjoying it, but much of the film isn't, on any grounds, very interesting. A throwaway episode by Steven Soderbergh, whose script seems to have taken all of ten minutes to conceptualize, and an archly artificial effort by nonagenarian Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni, that will be of interest only to Antonioni aficionados, round out the ill-fitting trio. The most stirring thing about these two episodes, ironically enough, is the gorgeous song, "Michelangelo Antonioni," sung in Italian by the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso, that connects them. Luckily, Wong's episode is haunting and lovely, once again very much in the style of his masterpiece "In the Mood for Love." Even better, this 39-minute episode comes first, which will allow audiences to skip out on the rest.

This first segment is called "The Hand" and is meant as an homage to that motif found perennially in Antonioni's work (as is a later, quick series of shots of empty rooms and hallways that recalls the finale of Antonioni's greatest film, "L'Eclisse"). Gong Li plays a courtesan in what seems to be the 1950's in what is apparently Hong Kong. Chang Chen (who appeared in Wong's earlier film "Happy Together") is the new tailor who comes to take her measurements for a dress. In the process she fondles him, bringing him to climax while whispering in his ear that she wants him to remember that feeling each time he makes a dress for her. The years pass and when she falls on hard times and becomes ill, the tailor tries to take care of her. The tubercular woman, now a common street prostitute, repays him once again with all she's got left, her hand.

The familiar Wongian themes are there: the passing of time and the tragic impossibility of the right people ever managing to be in love at the same time. Even better, the usual Wong team has been reassembled, with the inimitable Chris Doyle acting as director of photography and William Chang Suk-ping decorating the set and editing. Delicious, trademark slow-motion shots enhance the dreamy, erotic effect. Nevertheless, it must also be said that the episode in no way represents an aesthetic advance for Wong, but rather a summary re-statement in a moving, minimalist key.

Minimalist is also, perhaps, the most charitable word that could be applied to "Equilibrium," Soderbergh's contribution. We still seem to be in the 1950's, but this time, it's America and we're in the office of a shrink (Alan Arkin), who's distractedly listening to the recounting of a boring dream by his patient (Robert Downey, Jr.) about a woman answering a phone. The film stock is a creamy black-and-white, and the set is sliced by large bands of shadows from a Venetian blind, in the style of classic film noir. Seated behind his patient, the psychoanalyst spends the entire session apparently ogling a scantily-clad woman -- though we never actually see her -- with different sizes of binoculars (à la James Stewart in Hitchcock's "Rear Window," a clear reference). He begins to make hand signals to her, then ends up flying paper airplanes out the window. Then we find out it's all been a merely a dream.

Antonioni's segment, "The Dangerous Thread of Things," centers around that classic topos, a couple -- an Italian woman and an American man living in Italy, inexplicably driving a car with Parisian license plates -- who are on the verge of breaking up. Written by legendary Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra from a short sketch found in Antonioni's book "That Bowling Alley on the Tevere," the episode seems intended to represent some symbolic, otherworldly space, or at least you hope so, because the dialogue is pretentious and completely laughable from beginning to end. Fans of Antonioni's work will recognize the motif of the doubled woman from "L'Avventura" and the pristine beach from "Red Desert," but unfortunately the most consistent connection will be made with the disastrous "Zabriskie Point," whose bad acting made the film notorious within Antonioni's oeuvre. As always in an Antonioni film, space comments obliquely on the film's themes, but the director seems more interested in the two women featured in the film who are almost completely naked throughout. It's pleasant to think of this 92-year-old master still in thrall to the female form.

It's sad to think how thrilling this kind of filmmaking once was. Now, done poorly, it forcefully reminds us how much things have changed, and in how many ways.

[Pubrick]

I can't believe more people aren't excited about this flick.  (Or maybe they are -- they're just speechless.)  It should be brilliant.

what are u basing that on? as the above review confirms, it's quite clear why no one was excited about the news: when many directors decide to compile any sort of "collection" of shorts their individual efforts are invariably subpar.

eg.
11'09''01 - only watchable for Iñárritu's segment.
new york stories - only watchable for scorsese's, mercifully first as seems to be the case in Eros.
two evil eyes - watchable maybe for argento's.. or to imagine what craven and carpenter's segments might hav been.
four rooms -  not watchable at all.

[ono]

what are u basing that on?

Haven't read the whole review; I prefer not to ruin anything.  Besides, it's just one review.  I just thought it'd be good to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.  I had just seen Schizopolis, so that had a lot to do with it, and In the mood for love was excellent, too.  No comment about L'avventura, but other directors who have joined together for these sort of compilations haven't been nearly as acclaimed as these three, so that's a plus, too.  I figure if anyone can pull off something like this, these guys can.  Plus, the premise just sounded extremely interesting.

[Alethia]

new york stories - only watchable for scorsese's, mercifully first as seems to be the case in Eros.

scorsese AND allens segments....

[Pubrick]

but other directors who have joined together for these sort of compilations haven't been nearly as acclaimed as these three

i guess u hav never heard of new york stories.

that's ok.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

[cowboykurtis]

this looks pretty damn good

[ono]

Agreed, although you couldn't tell too much from the trailer.  Both good and bad.  Like something's hidden, or they don't want to give too much away.  I'm still intrigued.  I wonder though why this trailer was restricted.  Only others I remember seeing that were were Crash and The Girl Next Door.  Didn't seem to be anything to risque in this one.

[cowboykurtis]

you didn't see that big hairy vagina beneath that woman's skirt? i

[ono]

No, the contrast on my monitor was off, so it was just dark.  Guess I have a reason to watch the trailer again.

[Pubrick]

apart from wong's, ebert and everyone else is saying this sucks. i don't mind saying i told u so.

[kotte]

apart from wong's, ebert and everyone else is saying this sucks. i don't mind saying i told u so.

Have you seen this?? God I hope so.
People can't be excited because the critics hate it?