8 1/2 WOMEN A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2000 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
Numbers count for everything in a Peter Greenaway film.
In his brilliant feature debut "The Falls," 92 biographies of the survivors of a violent, unknown event are outlined with meticulous and loving detail. In "Drowning by Numbers," the integers 1 through 100 flow through the film, pinned to trees and tin baths, painted on buildings, cows, and passers-by. In "The Baby of Mācon," Julia Ormond's character is raped 217 times.
And Greenaway's latest film is called "8 1/2 Women."
Numerology is just one of the eclectic British director's many obsessions and here, for perhaps the first time, the numerical allusion isn't oblique--it's a direct reference to Federico Fellini's "8 1/2." "How many film directors make films to satisfy their sexual fantasies?" queries one of the film's leading men during a screening of Fellini's masterpiece. It's a rare and telling admission from Greenaway--if only "8 1/2 Women" were *his* masterpiece. Unfortunately, the director's latest cinematic put-on leaves a lot to be desired.
But back to the question about filmmakers and fantasies...
Just as Robert Altman was able to convince Madeleine Stowe, Frances McDormand, Julianne Moore (and Huey Lewis!) to bare all in his 1993 film "Short Cuts," so too does Greenaway have Toni Collette, Amanda Plummer, Polly Walker (and John Standing!) parade around in the altogether in "8 1/2 Women." Few filmmakers are as successful in celebrating the naked human form than Greenaway, since the director--a classically-trained painter--has always compared the nudity in his films to the role of the nude in Art. Think Walker as a Botticelli angel.
In "8 1/2 Women," there's room and then some for Greenaway's elaborate detailing, intellectual hypothesizing, and preponderance of naughty bits. A Swiss banker's wife dies leaving him emotionally paralyzed and sexually unfulfilled (Standing plays the banker). Inspired by a screening of "8 1/2," the banker's cocksure son (an irritating Matthew Delamere) convinces his father to populate his lavish Geneva estate with concubines to bring his dreams to life. This the banker does--among the women a mother, a whore, a nun, and a legless paraplegic (the half of the title)--yet he soon comes to recognize the darker, more disturbing side to fantasy.
"8 1/2 Women" is a Greenaway film through and through--intriguing to fans and maddening to the uninitiated--but the pieces of his latest puzzle never seem to come together in any satisfying way. The writing is too obviously designed to shock, the sexism too overt (this might well be Greenaway's most misogynistic film since 1985's "A Zed and Two Noughts"), and the structure too self-consciously convoluted. There are hints and reminders of greatness, such as the overlays introducing each sequence, bird calls on the soundtrack (a throwback to the ornithological excesses of "The Falls"?), and a kinky scene in which our protagonists sniff handfuls of Toni Collette's recently shorn hair.
But the picture feels incomplete, rushed, and half-hearted--for every wonderfully constructed scene and priceless interchange of dialogue there are awkward moments and stilted sequences which go nowhere.
A mediocre Greenaway film still stands head and shoulders above your standard Hollywood fare, but as films of this talented filmmaker go, "8 1/2 Women" proves a huge disappointment.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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