Defend the Indefensible: psychologically raw films about sexual obsession

I was just talking with someone about what a piece of crap Last Tango is.

Some films are not about stuff that happens often in everyday life.

Are we talking more Cronenberg's 'Crash' or do you include such things as 'Rochelle Rochelle' or 'Les Cousins Dangereux'?

But, you know, not imaginy ones.

if Vera Farmiga is naked in that movie i'm all for it

i saw "under the skin" with samantha morton recently and while it fits this question to a t, i frankly can't defend it

however, the current "the last mistress" also fits this question to a t and i love it so i will have to think about it

i'm not a big fan of last tango and in the cut was terrible, but i love in the realm of the senses. it's not really more plausible, i guess, it's just more delirious.

Oh man, I know! I hate unrealistic movies like this! I went so see this one movie, fuckin' Harry Potter. Have you seen that? SHIT FLOATS. That's total bullshit, man. When I put a unicorn hair in a stick and shout bastardized latin, y'know what happens? FUCKING NOTHING. Assholes.

agreeing that these kinds of movies are escapist children's fare isn't much of a defense dude

last tango is pretty amazing stuff when it's just brando monologing, but all the 'raping a young french girl' stuff is just prurient and gross.

I'm kind of arguing that all films by there very nature are subjective and deeply unrealistic, and that they should really only be judged by their internal logic and maybe the logic of their genre.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I can't stand pretty much any of these myself, but criticizing them for being unrealistic would seem to assume that there are films which aren't. Which is silly.

All of the movies mentioned that I've seen have been terrible (plus The Dreamers, which is THE WORST MOVIE EVER), but I don't think it was because their relationship with reality was iffy.

re: tango: but what about gigantic hair pie?

Does Closer count? I didn't mind that one.

umm that bit you're saying about how all relationships essentially follow this fairly predictable and healthy model is kinda some bullshit

I'm not gonna get into disclosing on a public board under my own name but:

have you, or anyone you know or have ever heard of, been involved in a dangerous, unstable love affair that challenges identities and cauterizes the senses.

I don't have the faintest what "cauterizing the senses" might involve but relationships that 1) were genuinely dangerous to my physical health and 2) did a fucking number on my identity, umm, yeah, anybody who hasn't had one or two of those hasn't really lived IMO

OTOH trying to make a movie about that kind of experience is obviously a nonstarter

i think the complaint is that the depiction of these kinds of relationships in movies is usually wholly unconvincing on the psychological/character level. the movies don't have to be "realistic," but they have to seem like more than an excuse for a lot of fucking.

the dreamers = shit
nine songs = shit

I don't have the faintest what "cauterizing the senses" might involve but relationships that 1) were genuinely dangerous to my physical health and 2) did a fucking number on my identity, umm, yeah, anybody who hasn't had one or two of those hasn't really lived IMO

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:32 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

OTM

OTOH trying to make a movie about that kind of experience is obviously a nonstarter

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:33 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

OTM

don't forget 9 1/2 weeks.

what about Annie Hall?

Well I can certainly get on board with that. I think this is just a case where the conventions of narrative film are wholly inadequate to express what the filmmakers are trying to express and that they'd be much better off sticking to more non-representational forms.

xxxxpost

I am going to make one of these movies. It will be called An Excuse for Fucking.

i've dated crazy and been off the charts depressed because of it too. funny how the movies about this kind of experience never dramatize the crucial events: the long sequence of moments when you get the f out of that situation and finally forget about it.

i'm being a dick on this thread but hint hint i think there's something really suspect about this genre. there's a consistent misrepresentational through-line to all of them, and the attitude to sex and attraction itself really myopic and hateful

high brow tit flicks are okay

celebrity breast!

Celebreast

Night Porter worked out OK

the sequel to 9 1/2 weeks is beyond retarded

night porter is great!

i dont know, i find the idea of fucking immigrants a great plot twist - can't wait to see this film!

i suspect the problem with these movies is often that the director can't resist casting the most fuckable woman he can, regardless of whether or not she can act - which explains why night porter and the last mistress both manage to evade lameness and are in fact both great

high brow tit flicks are okay

yeh see? imagine a breezy, sun-dappled comedy where naomi watts takes her shirt off. you can't really, it could never exist. these movies are prurient garbage.

i've got ai no corrida in my netflix queue, guess i'll add night porter as well.

haha who's even in 10 1/2 weeks?

The film spawned two direct-to-video sequels, Another 9½ Weeks in 1997 and The First 9½ Weeks in 1998.

I hate movies where people have sex, and then SUFFER for it. It's just puritanism in disguise.

i liked in the cut

but it was more like In the Cunt, amirite?

akm I did see that one and it was pretty light on the psychology, I have to sa

y

imagine a breezy, sun-dappled comedy where naomi watts takes her shirt off. you can't really, it could never exist.

french movies to thread?

What, like Belle du Jour?

the sequel to 9 1/2 weeks is beyond retarded

if Adrian Lyne had actually directed a sequel to 9 1/2 weeks and called it Beyond Retarded he would be officially the greatest man of all times

tbh the conjection of the name "naomi watts" with "breezy" and "sun-dappled" and "shirt off" is causing my entire brain to seize up completely

i cunt even spell right

Most of these films are a step away from Skinamax, admittedly. I don't watch most of them because they embarrass me, even if I'm watching them with my wife. Even Swimming Pool made me uncomfortable (also, it sucked).

yes this is kind of an american pathology, but those people eat snails dude

i will grant you that the french definition of "comedy" often looks suspiciously like "cruel weirdness"

nothing wrong with films of this type, a lot of them are great.

I really rate Tinto Brass, who usually gets lumped in with this stuff, but his work contains no inexplicable misery - or puritanism - whatsoever.

tie me up tie me down - almodovar
dont move - with penelope cruz.

Exotica is amazing - esp. with it's buildin- narrative techniques, where everything that starts blurry comes together neatly tied in the end.best in second viewing.

Sex & Lucia only had quite a lot of sex in the first half hour or so right? Then it settles down after that, from what I remember, to tell its story.

Caught a bit of The Dreamers on TV a couple of nights ago and it seemed much better 2nd time around. I think I saw more connections between the outside and the inside.

The Piano Teacher is not that strange given Haneke's bio (he ws thinking of becoming a classical musician wasn't he?), its just about the world of the conservatoire and the life that ppl can potentially love out in that world (or at least it plays to certain stereotypes of it)

In the Realm of the Senses is a very great movie. I must read the BFI book on it (and I want to see Cruel Story of Youth, which came out recently on DVD)

So far in, and no Shortbus?

From the perspective of living in France, where even the yoghurt ads on TV tend towards the erotic, the question is rather why there are so few naked bodies in American movies? Personally I'd go for more sex and nudity and less violence.

fuck you, how's that for more sex?

I don't have the faintest what "cauterizing the senses" might involve but relationships that 1) were genuinely dangerous to my physical health and 2) did a fucking number on my identity, umm, yeah, anybody who hasn't had one or two of those hasn't really lived IMO

So, can we go back to this and point out how ridiculously untrue this is?

that HBO series "Tell Me You Love Me" i kinda likes it though.

you haven't lived until you've had somebody tell you that you haven't lived

"Shortbus" is the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I think when one of the characters mentioned 9/11 steam started shooting out of my ears cartoon style.

I don't think "The Idiots" fits the bill here at all. I like "The Idiots," I just don't think it's this type of movie.

I forgot "Late Marriage" existed until seeing it mentioned on this thread and remembering what an amazing movie it was.

I think the sex scenes in these movies are always really funny, where people smash shit/knock stuff off tables/rip clothes off/gasp for breath. It never, ever, ever seems the least bit sexy.

I'd take any interchangeable Shannon Whirry/Shannon Tweed/Andrew Stevens "Animal Intstincts" "Body of Influence" "Mirror Images II" 90s VHS erotic thriller over any of these.

What about "Betty Blue"? People seem to have both a literal and intellectual boner for that movie. I didn't really get it, though.

It could happen.

i liked shortbus a lot but it doesn't have anything to do with this thread.

swimming pool had HQ boobage, love that flick. i didn't really "get it" though.

i liked secretary! it played s&m psychology for laffs, and it turned 'touching' and even sappy.

secretary is a great movie

I haven't really lived, apparently. I KNEW IT!

The first film that came to mind is Roeg's disturbing Bad Timing.

really, most of my "relationships" (God, I hate that usage) have been called off bcz I'm all NO DRAMA, plz. Haven't got the time.

If he was really hot I might cut more slack.

The Center of the World is OK and has a woman putting a lollipop in her yinyang.

Fear, with Marky Mark and Reese Witherspoon, is the best movie about the 90s.

i have seen this fear

It's like Urban Outfitters and the Gap fighting for this teenage girl's soul.

quite a roller coaster ride, as i recall

zactly, my man, that's a good sex scene.

i need to see late marriage again. not that it really belongs on this thread

woah it's molly parker in center of the world?! that's goin on the q

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"You want real? This movie shows you real." ... Read More

A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"The self-consciously rough, low-budget surface of The Center of the World can't disguise the slick cheapness at its heart." ... Read More

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"Mindless and prurient." ... Read More

i just netflixed it.

xp (late marriage)

"Center of the World" is credited From A Story By Wang, Miranda July, Paul Auster And Siri Hustvedt.

because of the Miranda July

woah it's molly parker in center of the world?! that's goin on the q

-- gff, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 12:14 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i know i know the widow garret omg rawr

what's great about the sex scenes in Don't Look Now isn't the sex itself so much as how its positioned as a fond immediate memory Christie and Sutherland have as they're getting dressed afterward.

xpost

obv. we have two topics going here -- that of the thread title and just non-porn movies with interesting sex scenes

haha apptly molly parker has a whole career of this stuff

Kissed (1996)
Ever since she was a young girl, Sandra Larson (Molly Parker) has been fascinated with the darkness of death. But when she takes a part-time job as an embalmer at a funeral parlor, her obsession with the afterlife and the study of necrophilia begins to consume her every desire. As her boyfriend (Peter Outerbridge) struggles to relate to her new lifestyle, he jumps through hoops to prove he'll do anything for love.

Bliss (1997)
Joseph (Craig Sheffer) and Maria (Sheryl Lee) are a young married couple in serious trouble. Although they love each other, Maria has difficulty opening up to Joseph, and, after 6 months of marriage, he makes the unhappy discovery that she's been unable to have an orgasm with him. Enter Balthazar (Terence Stamp), an unlicensed sex therapist who agrees to initiate Joseph into the mysteries of tantric sex that could save his marriage.

In the Shadows (1999)
Cash-strapped waitress Cynthia (Molly Parker) takes a job caring for moneyed cancer patient Eleanor Dunston (Joely Richardson). When she shows an interest in Cynthia's boyfriend, Buck (Aden Young), Cynthia persuades him to pose as her half brother so he can seduce the dying woman into leaving him her fortune. Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

Suspicious River (2000)
A fatalistic hotel receptionist (Molly Parker) who exhibits many self-destructive tendencies is compulsively drawn into a dark netherworld of crime. After playing the prostitute to several willing guests in the hotel where she works, she spirals into a heated romance with a sadistic lodger who allows her to be gang-raped. Soon, it seems that her behavior might lead her to the same fate as her mother, who was brutally murdered.

jesus christ

Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

wow

ha

http://bestmessageboardever.com/style_images/1/folder_post_icons/icon74.gifhttp://bestmessageboardever.com/style_images/1/folder_post_icons/icon74.gifhttp://bestmessageboardever.com/style_images/1/folder_post_icons/icon74.gif
Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

Writer-director Meg Richman transplants Henry James' classic novel The Wings of the Dove to Seattle's 1990s grunge scene.

totally. molly parker is terrible.

that list is like everything wrong with english-canadian cinema

still, would smash

BLISS is a movie every couple, married or not, should see to better improve their relationship with their partner on not only a sexual level, but an emotional and spiritual level as well. Many viewers will not go beyond the initial subject of sexual abuse plot setup and thus will miss the pure meat of this film. After the introduction of the sex therapist, dramatic and subtle secrets are revealed on how to woo and keep a partner intimately aroused. Anyone who has engaged in tantric sex knows that there is more to "the act" than just a localized feeling...that it can be experienced with the total body and for absolute endless hours! This is not orgy, but is rather arrived at with a slow hand and a controlled spirit. This is the first movie to delve into the God Power of the sexual act. Brilliantly written, exquisitely filmed, and supurbly acted, I would say this is one of my most treasured & recommended films.

107 out of 123 people found this review helpful.

shes good in deadwood

The mixed reviews say more about the viewers than the film. First, this is a film with sex in it, not a sex flick. It has excellent cinematography, score, acting, production values. And yes, a handful of sex scenes. The sex is grown-up, hot, emotional, and intense, but not explicit (no genitals). In short, it is serious. Can you handle it? Get past the sex to really appreciate it. I say rare because few films can handle sex directly without being voyeuristic or falling back to violence or juvenile humor to defuse the tension. Four stars for this film, and an extra one for breaking the tired old mold.

51 out of 55 people found this review helpful.

I think that if men could understand the deeper levels of sexuality that this movie demonstrates, there would be fewer divorces.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I know some of you disagree, but Bitter Moon is a terrible entry in this genre.

OK there the NFT over here appear to be doing a whole season of this stuff.

I've seen Realm of the Senses and Onibaba, both are very good.

ey thanks 2 everyone who talked up 'late marriage', what a great movie

Aren't *all* films w/ Sex in, stylised?

how many actual 'couplings' in a film, can you say reflects anything you have actually done to a greater extent?

I'm not saying 'none', there's just so few of them.

28

yeah 'late marriage' is great.

xpost OK, names!