The
Loss of Sexual Innocence
Rated
R
Sex can be good, sex can be bad and sex can be innocent. Innocence
is inevitably lost to the vulgarity of experience, but we
continue to yearn for the feeling of that moment--whether
thrilling or traumatic--when dewy eyes yielded to fumbling
hands. Trapped in the deep recesses of our imagination, our
innocent hearts stay with us, even as we confront the confusion
of adult sexuality. Why are we the way we are?
This is the question that director Mike Figgis attempts
to address with his newest film, The Loss of Sexual Innocence,
a ponderous cinematic poem that comes off as pompous and
shallow. Ambitiously adopting a non-linear structure driven
by music and images, Figgis appears to have been inspired
by the works of Bernardo Bertolucci, Michelangelo Antonioni
and Nicholas Roeg. The film certainly feels European--but
unfortunately, it's more like Euro-trash.
The protagonist is Figgis' alter-ego character Nic (Julian
Sands), a filmmaker who has a beautiful but bitter wife,
an adored child and a fixation on sex and death. The film
weaves together scenes from Nic's childhood in Kenya, his
early adolescence in a cruel boarding school and his later
teen years, during which his girlfriend cheats on him. The
second half of the film arbitrarily turns to the adult Nic,
who is working on a film in the Sahara Desert with a beautiful
woman (Saffron Burrows) and her philandering--but nonetheless
jealous--Italian boyfriend (Stefano Dionisi). These vignettes
of Nic's life alternate with scenes of Adam and Eve before
and after their fall from grace, apparently in an effort
to drape the arc of Nic's own life in archetypal meaning.
Is Figgis really being so painfully obvious? That depends.
When viewed as merely a series of dream-like images, the
film doesn't need to make sense beyond portraying Nic's
stream of consciousness. To the film's credit, the sublime
music of romantic composers such as Schumann, Beethoven
and Chopin brings an emotional authenticity to Nic's yearning.
There is a painful beauty here, a feeling that joy is attainable
in spurts of beautiful music, lush imagery and personal
memories--but that joy leaves us vulnerable to the frustration
and horrors of life.
Nic is a battered soul who desperately wants to feel something,
anything. His yearning for innocence past leads to the weakest
and most agitating aspect of the picture--the use of the
Adam and Eve tale. What is this supposed to teach us about
Nic? That shame and jealously are the downfall of a healthy,
loving relationship? That lustful sex leads to unhappiness
and insecurity? That cloaking our naked selves is the same
as cloaking the emotions that will only tug at us throughout
our entire lives? Presumably, the answer is yes on all counts.
But the only thing Figgis adds to this tale is lovely photography.
Figgis understands that cinema, as a visual medium, doesn't
need to be talky. As Nicholas Roeg so beautifully demonstrated
in Walkabout, cinematic imagery can be twisted into
visions of poetry. Figgis extends this even further by making
his film a series of often-silent vignettes that return
to a central theme or poetic melody. In essence, Figgis
is attempting to make a cinematic version of T.S. Eliot's
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," in which one man
ponders his life during the trivial taking of tea, while
images of "mermaids singing each to each" tempt him with
loveliness he can no longer experience. But Eliot's famous
refrain, "In the room the women come and go, talking of
Michelangelo," was a way to return the reader to Prufrock's
actual setting, as if to remind us that throughout this
aging man's sublime discourse, he is indeed sitting around
watching women walk through the room. By contrast, Figgis'
use of the Adam and Eve story as his own refrain serves
only to remove the viewer from the personal--and more affecting--context
of Nic's experience. Nic's story becomes less Prufrockian
and more pretentious, even laughable--a sad thing, since
the movie is meant to be taken autobiographically, poetically
and, most importantly, seriously. Even when the attempt
is admirable, good imagery cannot excuse bad poetry.
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 14, 1999
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