Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- Only one of the three episodes of the anthology film Eros delivers on the title's promise. Three world-class directors -- Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh and the seemingly ageless master himself, Michelangelo Antonioni -- take a crack at making a short film about eroticism and desire. That and the title should create considerable excitement in art houses for Warner Independent Pictures. But the disappointment caused by two-thirds of the film may cut into the boxoffice.
The first and most successful short belongs to Wong. The Hand, the story of a Hong Kong tailor's (Chang Chen) longtime obsession with a beautiful prostitute (Gong Li) for whom he crafts many fine garments, is like the writer-director's recent features -- a moody and intimate story told in close shots in almost claustrophobic rooms.
Eroticism hangs heavily in the air, and the two actors ably convey the passage of years and ebb and flow of a life where a certain kind of love can never be requited.
Soderbergh's Equilibrium is an amusing sketch set in a psychiatrist's office in 1955 between a shrink (Alan Arkin) and a very anxious patient (Robert Downey Jr.). All but the patient's recurring dream is shot in stylish black-and-white.
The dream itself does feature flashes of female nudity, but any short that revolves around the invention of the snooze alarm clock cannot consider itself erotic. Equilibrium is clever but emotionally flat.
For many cineastes the world over, the great Italian director Antonioni can do no wrong. So this free-form series of images revolving around a quarreling married couple and their individual encounters with a free-spirited woman may trigger all sorts of suggestions and provocations. Indeed, they will have to because on the surface, the short suffers from emotional and cinematic banality.
A couple (Christopher Buchholz and Regina Nemni) bicker in stilted, poorly delivered dialogue. They visit a restaurant, and he spots a young woman (Luisa Ranieri). When they angrily separate, the husband pursues the girl and makes love to her. Some time later, in early winter, the estranged wife goes to the beach, takes off her clothes and then encounters the same girl, who is also naked. Who takes their clothes off at the beach in wintertime?
Technical credits vary, but for the most part are top-notch.
EROS
Warner Independent
Roissy Films/Block 2 Pictures/Jet Tone Films Production/IpsoFacto/Solaris/Cite Films Productions/Fandango/Delux
Credits:
Directors: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Tonino Guerra
Producers: Jacky Pang Yee Wah, Gregory Jacobs, Stephane Tchal Gadjieff, Raphael Berdujgo, Jacques Bar, Domenico Procacci
Executive producers: Chang Ye Cheng, Danielle Rosencranz
Directors of photoghraphy: Christopher Doyle, Peter Andrews, Marco Pontecorvo
Production designer: William Chang, Philip Messina, Stefano Luci
Costumes: William Chang
Milena Canonero Carin Berger,
Music: Peer Rabin
Enrica Antonioni, Vinicio MalaniOnly
Editors: William Chang Suk Ping, Mary Ann Bernard, Claudio di Mauro.
Cast: Miss Hua: Gong Li
Zhang: Chang Chen
Nick: Robert Downey Jr.
Dr. Pearl: Alan Arkin
Christopher: Christopher Bucholtz
Cloe: Regina Nemni
Luisa Ranieri
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 104 minutes...
TORONTO -- Only one of the three episodes of the anthology film Eros delivers on the title's promise. Three world-class directors -- Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh and the seemingly ageless master himself, Michelangelo Antonioni -- take a crack at making a short film about eroticism and desire. That and the title should create considerable excitement in art houses for Warner Independent Pictures. But the disappointment caused by two-thirds of the film may cut into the boxoffice.
The first and most successful short belongs to Wong. The Hand, the story of a Hong Kong tailor's (Chang Chen) longtime obsession with a beautiful prostitute (Gong Li) for whom he crafts many fine garments, is like the writer-director's recent features -- a moody and intimate story told in close shots in almost claustrophobic rooms.
Eroticism hangs heavily in the air, and the two actors ably convey the passage of years and ebb and flow of a life where a certain kind of love can never be requited.
Soderbergh's Equilibrium is an amusing sketch set in a psychiatrist's office in 1955 between a shrink (Alan Arkin) and a very anxious patient (Robert Downey Jr.). All but the patient's recurring dream is shot in stylish black-and-white.
The dream itself does feature flashes of female nudity, but any short that revolves around the invention of the snooze alarm clock cannot consider itself erotic. Equilibrium is clever but emotionally flat.
For many cineastes the world over, the great Italian director Antonioni can do no wrong. So this free-form series of images revolving around a quarreling married couple and their individual encounters with a free-spirited woman may trigger all sorts of suggestions and provocations. Indeed, they will have to because on the surface, the short suffers from emotional and cinematic banality.
A couple (Christopher Buchholz and Regina Nemni) bicker in stilted, poorly delivered dialogue. They visit a restaurant, and he spots a young woman (Luisa Ranieri). When they angrily separate, the husband pursues the girl and makes love to her. Some time later, in early winter, the estranged wife goes to the beach, takes off her clothes and then encounters the same girl, who is also naked. Who takes their clothes off at the beach in wintertime?
Technical credits vary, but for the most part are top-notch.
EROS
Warner Independent
Roissy Films/Block 2 Pictures/Jet Tone Films Production/IpsoFacto/Solaris/Cite Films Productions/Fandango/Delux
Credits:
Directors: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers: Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Tonino Guerra
Producers: Jacky Pang Yee Wah, Gregory Jacobs, Stephane Tchal Gadjieff, Raphael Berdujgo, Jacques Bar, Domenico Procacci
Executive producers: Chang Ye Cheng, Danielle Rosencranz
Directors of photoghraphy: Christopher Doyle, Peter Andrews, Marco Pontecorvo
Production designer: William Chang, Philip Messina, Stefano Luci
Costumes: William Chang
Milena Canonero Carin Berger,
Music: Peer Rabin
Enrica Antonioni, Vinicio MalaniOnly
Editors: William Chang Suk Ping, Mary Ann Bernard, Claudio di Mauro.
Cast: Miss Hua: Gong Li
Zhang: Chang Chen
Nick: Robert Downey Jr.
Dr. Pearl: Alan Arkin
Christopher: Christopher Bucholtz
Cloe: Regina Nemni
Luisa Ranieri
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 104 minutes...
- 9/16/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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