8½ Women 1999 R18+
8½ Women 1999 R18+
35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY, 120 MINUTES, UK / THE NETHERLANDS / LUXEMBOURG / GERMANY, ENGLISH, ITALIAN, JAPANESE, LATIN (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: PETER GREENAWAY / CINEMATOGRAPHERS: REINIER VAN BRUMMELEN, SACHA VIERNY / EDITOR: ELMER LEUPEN / PRODUCTION DESIGNERS: WILBERT VAN DORP, EMI WADA / COSTUME DESIGN: EMI WADA / PRODUCTION CO: WOODLINE PRODUCTIONS, MOVIE MASTERS, DELUX PRODUCTIONS, CONTINENT FILM GMBH, KASANDER & WIGMAN PRODUCTIONS / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: FILMS SANS FRONTIERES
‘It is an elaboration on the subject of eight and a half stereotypes of male sexual fantasy… But this is no documentary and hopefully more than a list of archetypes. All the material is fictional and develops its own eight and a half private, coalesced journeys, where, perhaps not unexpectedly, the females can run faster than the men and trade their freedoms by exhausting the male sexual fantasies and replacing them by some of their own. A Darwinist could say that such fantasies that are represented here might be an evolutionary necessity for both sexes.’ Peter Greenaway, www.petergreenaway.org.uk
In this parable of sexual indulgence and narcissism, recently widowed billionaire Philip Emmenthal (John Standing) and his son Storey (Matthew Delamere), invite a group of women to their Geneva mansion to console their grief with pleasure. All willing attendants, the women represent a series of sublime and ridiculous elaborations on female archetypes from Western art and cinema. With their harem of personal concubines, both men begin retraining their ability to experience intimacy through an inventory of sexual fantasies. While on the surface the premise appears misogynist, Peter Greenaway works to invert the gender roles with the film’s combination of farce and tragedy. 8 ½ Women remains a surreal comedy about grief, power and corruption, in which the wealthy but emotionally deficit men remain dreamers and the women simply move on when they grow tired of the game.
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