Yes, "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye" is a pornographic film. But not unlike "Last Tango in Paris," it is not pornographic for the sake of feeding audience depravity. As with the Bertolucci masterwork, it brilliantly shows what happens when one's physical appetite cannot be fulfilled. The results are either darkly comic and tragic, depending on the viewer's mindframe. But McElhinney's route to these results, as with the Bertolucci, is nothing short of stunning.
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http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?Id=5907 ]
Would that some glimmer of style or originality appear in Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye, a wannabe-transgressive maladaptation of the surrealist novella, composed almost completely of three cringingly conventional, clumsily shot hardcore sex scenes. Add clunky symbolism (a man twiddles a joystick while watching freaky dancers) and clich?d stock-footage choices (human birth, the Zapruder film) and the result is relentless, pretentious tedium. Director Andrew Repasky McElhinney, who earned critical lauds for his Romero-esque A Chronicle of Corpses, appears to think this project is frightfully meaningful and audacious, but this skin-deep flick is merely art-school sophomoric, unwittingly cornball, and counterrevolutionary.
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http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0438,h ... 65,20.html ]
? Here's a sample:
Thanks trep!
