Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

BillK There are some films you watch to get a message and this is one of the most surprising. The director sees a dichotomy in men's views of women which some women internalize. Paglia talks about the same thing, without focusing on the 'infernal' part that dominates this film. What is similar in Paglia and Breillat's views is that men admire tidiness, completeness, finality; they see the world in an almost binary way. They see women as complicated by the potential to create life and abhor the mechanisms that support that creation. Paglia calls it the Apollonian vs Dionysian. Breillat doesn't use those terms, but might think of it as Apollonian vs Cthonian. I personally don't have this view, but I've heard about it long enough to assume it's widespread among men.Breillat relieves us men of the overgeneralization by using a sexually ambiguous character to act as the "watcher of the unwatchable." Our heroine is ambiguous, too, in that she wants the opposite of what she claims and has chosen a difficult path to get it. I am conflicted in how to rate this film. It is simple on the surface, and deals with a lot of imagery that will be intolerable to some viewers (other reviews on IMDb reflect that). As the launching point of discussion between men and women, this film serves its purpose. But I do not see this as a film that a man and a woman should watch together, because their respective reactions may color and diminish the other's experience.

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.

Yier I've watched this movie twice, and it was not until the 2nd time that I began to understand it. I am a woman, so at least I am competent for that perspective from the female sex. It all too possible lacks inclusiveness, but the female perspective is not so much an imposition of the director's prejudices as an invitation to seriously question the foundation of human race: the reign of male-dominated sexuality and the illusion of the ultimate achievement of sexual pleasure through a man and a woman. These two problems are inter-related to each other. One could be said to be the flip side of the other; they are the same problem.First here are some points I gathered from the movie. 1. Does sex need to be meaningful? Sex is just sex. The sensuality has nothing to do with love. Distinct though these two are, they are able to mingle. For love to have meaning, it must exhibit itself in that process of sexual practice, conscious or not. Surely this is not the only occasion for love to act for itself, but its great force is beyond all imagination. For sex to have meaning, it must attach itself to something. And then everything's beautiful. It seems that it cannot live alone, but why does it have to live? That's the problem. I mean we don't talk about eating as if there's some great myth about it. But we do dramatize sex. Human beings are fascinated by the study and practice of sexuality to such an extent that they, some intentionally, some not, deceive themselves. And the most funny thing is that they attach sex to love and make them inseparable. Don't get me wrong. I am not evangelizing the separation of sex and love. Nor did the director in Anatomy of Hell. We adore that. But the truth is set patterns of love victimize sex and sex in turn disappoints love. Why? Because we do not admit that they are two different things and it is we who relate them together. Where is the breaking-point? It lies at the definition of both, with love being supposedly more important. I will briefly discuss these definitions when I come to my 2nd point but now let me finish my first point first. The movie suggests that we not take too seriously sexual pleasure because first of all we tend to be trapped in those pre-defined patterns of love and then fantasize sex in this context. W-A-T-C-H the movie. I think it's really documentary in a great sense. It tells you that sexual pleasures are varied and it simply is not true that only sex between a woman and man is the most pleasant or that only certain practices (like foreplay, penetration, movement inside and orgasm after) could make the most pleasant. It tells you this from the beginning towards the end. So if you take that pleasure too seriously, you are doomed to be disappointed or indulged in self-deceit. Look at how little pleasure that woman got when that men finished the whole thing. She could feel at heaven by simply masturbating herself. She knows how to please herself better than anyone else in this world, organ-pleasure-wise.But this does not mean sex is no pleasure. It has plenty and why should we not be allowed to explore that? This brings us to my 2nd point. 2. Definitions of love and sex revisited. Love/sex is not necessarily between a man and a woman. Consider how simple this truth is. Yet few could accept that. Even those gay men and women are taking love as excuses for their being together; love is not an excuse, it's an initiation. Love should come as no excuse if you only want to explore sex with both or either sexes and no more. The desire for exploration is honest; the insert of such an excuse is not. Don't get me wrong again. Now I am so approval of any kind of love and I shall pass no judgment on how love works between any kind of people. I believe in its existence and everywhere. What I'm trying to say is this, even people who are supposedly in the positon of re-defining love do not know what they are doing. It's simple as this: virgins who have sex with men are not necessarily feminists; they might as well go to the hospital after that to regain their cherry or feel guilty all the time.So, it's only orthodoxy that certain types of sex are accepted; they are not true. It is a belief, yet a misbelief. The movie starts with two gay men with one doing the blow-job for the other. I know it's gonna fly in the face of all conventional wisdom and cultural bondage. And I'm right. People find something out, i.e., they find out that sex (and only certain sex) between a man and a woman is only supposedly right and they question it (probably because they just don't enjoy it) and then they abandon it. Some feel guilty and need discreetness; others don't. But what's wrong with the simple fact that when it comes to sexuality same sex knows better than the opposite sex does. I told you not to take too seriously. This is nothing, just knowledge and psychology. It is something to the extent that it reveals the misbelief of love also. Only certain types of love are accepted and this is wrong. These types are considered sacred and made so through manipulation, and now it is time to uncover that.3. Love and be true to yourself. Now that we find out everything about sex, its simple but misleading nature, all the evils it's generated and lies it's been telling, we should wake up. It's self-sufficient, but only part of life, not all. Love makes everything beautiful, including sex. Any kind of love, I mean.