VividSimon Simply Perfect

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

lastliberal This is an extremely difficult film to watch, Certainly, I appreciated seeing it alone. It is not and experience I would wish to share in a theater.Daniel Day-Lewis may "drink your milkshake," but I doubt very much if he would partake of the woman's (Amira Casar) tea made with a used tampon, and offered to the man (Rocco Siffredi) as a means of bonding. It gives "drinking the blood of my enemies" a whole new meaning.Catherine Breillat has certainly pushed the envelope with this film about men and women and men's hatred and fears of women. There is really nothing erotic about this film; it is provocation meant to shock and awe.That may be what is needed in the discussion, but it certainly takes a strong person to observe and think.The Woman hires The Man, who happens to be gay, and can therefore be more objective (?) to observe her over four nights and comment on what he finds objectionable about women. The love/hate/fear between men and women is discussed and played out in a way I have not seen before, but in such a way that it really made me think. I believe that is Breillat's objective, and she certainly achieved it.It is not meant to be erotic, and it is not pornographic, although is ostensibly has real sex included, but is, shall we say, meant to provoke discussion.

MrMarcus Most people who criticise this movie are coming from two anglesThey found it offensive, or They didn't 'get it'In contrast, I simply believe that this is a bad movie. As in, the artistic decisions made by writer/director Catherine Brelliat are detrimental to the film.First up, don't believe the hype. It's not that offensive. In fact, I've never seen a movie try so hard to be 'confronting' and 'controverial' and failing so badly. Brelliat clearly wants to shock and upset her audience, with plenty of explicit depictions of oral sex, wrist slashing and the like, but she goes overboard in this respect. The scenes are so explicit, constant and in-your-face that the audience becomes numb to them. This makes scenes like the 'lipstick' and 'hair-gel' moments come across as silly rather than shocking.And the movie is certainly not erotic. It's full of that cold, passionless 'realistic sex' so favoured by the European art-house.Where the movie really fails is in the plot, acting and dialogue. Brelliat casts Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi and actress Amira Cassa in the leads, but bungles this horribly by giving Siffredi all the important scenes and dialogue. We're treated to him mechanically reciting some impossibly pretentious rubbish while the more accomplished actress Cassa does little but lie down with her legs apart for most of the film. Again, this is more likely to trigger some guffaws rather than the philosophical discourse Brelliat was hoping for.And the plot, such as it is. Our hero can overcome his homosexuality by embracing his combined love and fear of the female genitalia. Or something. The idea that homosexuals are actually repressed heterosexuals and can be 'cured' is both ridiculous and offensive. Being a hardcore feminist doesn't give Brelliat the right to spout homophobic garbage. So, stupid plot, woeful dialogue, wooden acting, and explicit scenes so over-the-top you end up sniggering. Anatomy of Hell is a terribly wrong-headed and unintentionally hilarious film that even devotees of hardcore art-house cinema should avoid.

w00f It's going to be very hard to write a review for this film that isn't going to be pounced on by censorship, but I'll give it a try.Within the first five minutes of this film, a woman attempts suicide in the bathroom of a gay disco. It is, perhaps, the most cheerful moment in this bleak, drab film that takes a close-up and clinical look at women's genitalia and the men who don't love them. And apparently the women who aren't feeling too good about them either, since the reason that the "heroine" attempts to kill herself is, she says, because she's a woman.A gay man saves her and winds up spending four nights watching her. Of course, he winds up doing more than that. At one point, he manages to lodge the handle of a large gardening tool in a rather intimate location... without waking her up. Does _anybody_ sleep that soundly? Well, maybe the audience...In between long segments of the character "man" telling us why he's gay (although you wouldn't know it by watching this movie!) and the heroine "woman" tells us why its so hard to be her, we get some truly remarkable revelations. Ever wondered how long a woman could hold a rock inside her girlie bits or what large quantities of menstrual blood look like when smeared across the groin of a partially-aroused Frenchman? Then this is the movie for you! At one point, the heroine goes so far as to equate her reproductive opening to a vast black void, and in yet another we learn that men can give only death, and that's why gay men turn gay. Or something. You know, it's hard to follow a story when every line in the script is a veritable hyperbola of pith and the observation of humanity. Well, some seemingly quite miserable segment of humanity, anyhow.I am, admittedly, not a devotee of French cinema. I subscribe to the stereotype that most French movies are... well... like this one. There are people in the world who take their lower regions far too seriously, and one of them has made a movie.If you've ever wanted to kill yourself over the fact that you possess genitalia, be sure and check out this fine croissant stuffed with French cheese and a few things that IMDb won't let me mention using the names by which they're most commonly called. Mark my words, you'll never look at your crotch the same way again!

tedg Some of us are more nimble than others at being so and some of us hide it well, but it is the human condition to be stupid. We all are and that's that. The best we can hope for is to find those that do it gracefully.Make no mistake, Breillat is stupid. She would bring any gathering down and to have her as a friend would be a burden. And yet she has given me images that I carry around (with other gems) to serve as touchstones into the world of women. Her films are poorly composed but there really are some cinematically perfect moments in every one. So what you want to do is watch this (or any of them) and avoid at all costs any of her own interviews. I know what she intends. Its uninteresting, not worth the effort. The dialog is similarly a waste of life, but you cannot get to the images without it, so drudge through, please.The reason is that she knows the power of vision and she moves the imagination of image with grace. All the droll theorizing I can forgive, even credit as bravery because she knows how the eye and mind work as tractors to the soulThere's a truly disturbing act of cowardice though at the very beginning, before the credits. We are told that the more "disgusting" things weren't actually done by the actress, but by a body double. Now why?You might want to see this before "Loss of Sexual Innocence" which is equally banal in the same way, and as powerful.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.