Eros (15.)
Directed by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni.
Starring Gong Li, Robert Downey Jr, Alan Arkin. 104 mins.
Like European dictators attempting to conquer Russia or British TV’s obsession with trying to find a Letterman equivalent, the world’s most prestigious directors continue to come together to make anthology movies even though they must know the films are doomed to failure. Spielberg, Allen, Passolini, Godard, Scorsese, Coppola, Tarantino have all had a bash and now Eros draws to together a particularly disparate crew -Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni - to make some short films about shagging.
All you need to know about Eros is contained in the little title cards that introduce each segment – a breathy chanteuse murmuring on about amour to a jazzy arrangement (oh those vibes) over an erotic painting. This is highbrow tasteful erotica of the 15 certificate variety.
The Hand kicks us off in the now standard Wong Kar Wai style, so heavily stylised and ponderously lush it can barely move. While you’re watching this tale of a fading beauty (Gong Li) and the tailor that makes her clothes it seems like a fatuous waste of time but you miss it when it’s gone. That look is so seductive and enveloping that when it ends it’s like an alarm clock wrenching you from a particularly rich dream. Conversely, Soderbergh’s effort Equilibrium, a witty and intriguing two hander between Arkin and Downey Jr is fully involving for as long as it lasts but crumbles from the memory almost instantly.
The movie’s glory is surely final instalment The Desperate Thread of Things. Like compatriot Bertolucci, Antonioni has spent his recent years trying to find something to fill the gap left when all your dreams of Marxist revolution have failed and they’ve both reached the same conclusion – arty soft porn. The kind of movies where beautiful young women will whip off their tops, look moodily into the distance and spit out terse lines like “I’ve always loved this place but with you here today, it oppresses me.”
The Desperate Thread of Things is quite the most pretentious pieces of twaddle I think I’ve ever seen and should be treasured as such. It by far the worst of the three segments but really the main reason to see Eros. It is laugh out loud funny, has strikingly photographed landscapes and gratuitous nudity. Antonioni will be 94 years old at the end of this month and though a stroke robbed him of the ability to speak in the 1980’s he must surely be the most enviable pensioner on earth. I like to imagine him as a Young Mr Grace from Are You Being Served figure, being helped around the film set by two dolly bird assistant and waving his walking stick while assuring cast and crew “You’re all making very very high art.”
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Directed by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni.
Starring Gong Li, Robert Downey Jr, Alan Arkin. 104 mins.
Like European dictators attempting to conquer Russia or British TV’s obsession with trying to find a Letterman equivalent, the world’s most prestigious directors continue to come together to make anthology movies even though they must know the films are doomed to failure. Spielberg, Allen, Passolini, Godard, Scorsese, Coppola, Tarantino have all had a bash and now Eros draws to together a particularly disparate crew -Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni - to make some short films about shagging.
All you need to know about Eros is contained in the little title cards that introduce each segment – a breathy chanteuse murmuring on about amour to a jazzy arrangement (oh those vibes) over an erotic painting. This is highbrow tasteful erotica of the 15 certificate variety.
The Hand kicks us off in the now standard Wong Kar Wai style, so heavily stylised and ponderously lush it can barely move. While you’re watching this tale of a fading beauty (Gong Li) and the tailor that makes her clothes it seems like a fatuous waste of time but you miss it when it’s gone. That look is so seductive and enveloping that when it ends it’s like an alarm clock wrenching you from a particularly rich dream. Conversely, Soderbergh’s effort Equilibrium, a witty and intriguing two hander between Arkin and Downey Jr is fully involving for as long as it lasts but crumbles from the memory almost instantly.
The movie’s glory is surely final instalment The Desperate Thread of Things. Like compatriot Bertolucci, Antonioni has spent his recent years trying to find something to fill the gap left when all your dreams of Marxist revolution have failed and they’ve both reached the same conclusion – arty soft porn. The kind of movies where beautiful young women will whip off their tops, look moodily into the distance and spit out terse lines like “I’ve always loved this place but with you here today, it oppresses me.”
The Desperate Thread of Things is quite the most pretentious pieces of twaddle I think I’ve ever seen and should be treasured as such. It by far the worst of the three segments but really the main reason to see Eros. It is laugh out loud funny, has strikingly photographed landscapes and gratuitous nudity. Antonioni will be 94 years old at the end of this month and though a stroke robbed him of the ability to speak in the 1980’s he must surely be the most enviable pensioner on earth. I like to imagine him as a Young Mr Grace from Are You Being Served figure, being helped around the film set by two dolly bird assistant and waving his walking stick while assuring cast and crew “You’re all making very very high art.”
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