Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176969 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-10-10
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Customer Reviews

Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.
Despite being hissed at Cannes this film is still well worth seeing and improves on repeated viewings.

Greenaway has his protagonist ask if all directors make films to fulfil their own sexual fantasies, and we must assume (unless he is pulling our collective leg) proceeds to do exactly that, as Emmenthal pere et fils assemble a harem of female stereotypes in their mansion. As well as the obvious Fellini reference, the film harks back to "A Zed and Two Noughts" in a number of respects, in the sort of intertextual game-playing Greenaway fans will know and love.

As with all Greenaway's work since The Falls, the photography is ravishing. No-one makes films which look better. It's unfortunate that he's not found a musical collaborator to equal Michael Nyman, but you can't have everything. He may not be sweeping the art-house scene before him these days (in fact there's not much of a UK art-house scene left these days), but in the end, slightly below-par Greenaway is better than 99% of directors can even aspire to.

Bizarre sexual comedy
There's a kind of French farce/Marquis de Sade/Japanese porn feel to this self-indulgent romp from Brit auteur Peter Greenaway. It's kind of a "God, I'm bored and I've got so much money and what the heck let's turn the Geneva mansion into a bordello, a different woman in every room and Dad and I will have lots of fun and bond" thing. "I mean mom's gone now, Dad, and you never really got out and now it's time to live." So father and son go naked a lot with lots of babes who are also naked a lot.

Matthew Delamere (Storey) is the son and John Standing (Philip) is the father. It's a bit creepy seeing them sharing the same bed naked. In fact it's a bit creepy seeing John Standing naked, period. But that's part of the Greenaway intent. Let's shock the bourgeoisie. It's such fun to do stuff that will make them squirm.

They hissed at Cannes when this was shown (I understand; I wasn't there). It was first released in the Czech Republic, which says something, but I'm not sure what. It was banned in Malaysia--but that's pretty standard. The women are bizarre but, to be honest, intriguing. The story isn't much of a story. The rationale for suddenly taking on the life of the libertine is slight (Philip's wife dies) and a bit late in the coming. (And no pun intended.)

The story starts in Tokyo with Storey helping Simato, a pachinko addict played by Annie Shizuka Inoh, avoid financial trouble in exchange for sexual favors. But never mind. As I said, the story doesn't matter. What matters is the outrageousness of the events (mostly sexual) and the beautiful sets. That's it.
Most interesting thing in the film is Polly Walker who has both sex appeal and charisma. Most grotesque is that pig with its pinkish white skin so very human looking--and of course that was a sight joke and a comment upon humanity. But again, never mind.

By the way, the 8 1/2 in the title is because Fellini's famous film somehow inspired Storey and Philip toward their debauchery.

Greenaway descends
Peter Greenaway is a remarkably pure artist, unconfined by the conventions that define most modern art even in the negative sense of ironic comment. His women are beautiful wraiths animated by improbable and alien desires, his men a rogues gallery of peacocks, rogues, and victims. Witty words and dense visual beauty substitute for plot and recognizable human character.

8 1/2 Women is the first of Greenaway's films that fails for visual and verbal invention. Lacking the bedrock of solid cliche that makes mediocre films bearable as familiar comforting stories this film reveals the sterility of Greenaway's sympathetic instinct and the irrelevance of his intellectual impulses.

His last effort, The Pillow Book, was more beautiful but less interesting than earlier works. Comparing the vivacious clarity of The Draughtsman's Contract with 8 1/2 Women's turbid vacuity suggests that Greenaway's powers peaked early, and that the arc of his descent grows steeper with age.