A fascinating mood piece from a filmmaker who painstakingly explores the sometimes ugly lives of women -- without flinching.
Comment
09/18/04
Anatomy of Hell (2004)
26
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:9
Rotten:25
Average Rating:3.6/10
Consensus: Ponderous, pretentious, and -- considering the subject matter -- dull.
Theatrical Release:Oct 15, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: Over the course of her career as a writer and filmmaker, Catherine Breillat (ROMANCE, FAT GIRL) has never shied away from controversial topics, using both mediums to explore her strong feminist... [More]
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Reviews for Anatomy of Hell
The ultimate lesson being taught isn’t how homosexuality can be transposed to kinky hetero sex games.
01/24/05
In her latest feature, sexual provocatrix Catherine Breillat turns a philosophical speculum on gender relations to perverse (and perversely elegant) effect.
10/12/04
Top CriticOne of the most groundbreaking films in recent memory in terms of both the explicitness of its sexuality and its commitment to such an austere intellectual discourse.
11/23/04
It might not be a film that can be taken too literally, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken seriously.
10/15/04
Breillat, as usual, leaves us gasping.
10/15/04
Top CriticIt's an admirably bold film, Siffredi is surprisingly good, and it's filled with images you're not likely to see anywhere else.
10/15/04
In her clinical yet stately manner Breillat is largely -- though not wholly -- successful.
09/24/04
Top CriticBreillat uses this man and woman on a bed (sometimes only he is clothed, and sometimes the two of them are naked) as a way of exploring the meaning of women's bodies from social, political and personal angles, instead of purely sensual ones.
10/20/04
Top CriticA ponderous but very, very explicit exploration of gender roles and fears that frequently seems like a parody of the genre.
11/11/04
Vagina dialogue this may be, but it seems much more like a bunch of arse.
11/26/04
Issues of sexual commitment, fidelity and self-worth are graphically explored with the torpid detachment of a psych major’s filmic send-up of a Calvin Klein commercial...
10/05/04
Given that [Breillat's] premise is that all men are guilty and all women are victims in the same manner, the film becomes a ridiculous socio-political rant, not a drama about the complexity of real life.
11/12/04
a font of faux profundity
10/13/04
Pretentious pornographic stuff and nonsense.
10/11/04
Breillat is a smart, serious observer of sexuality's often disruptive role in human life, but this existential drama is sadly pretentious.
10/14/04
It offends because it is so empty-headed and seemingly gratuitous in the sludge it offers up.
10/19/04
Unless you buy the obnoxious premise that men in general, and gay men in particular, loathe women, you may find yourself thinking, 'Buck up, dear!' and concluding that this is a filmmaker whose desire to shock exceeds her capacity for interesting thought.
09/22/04
I hate this movie, but only because it hated me first.
01/16/05
Ultimately less reminiscent of similarly themed efforts like Last Tango in Paris than of an explicit health education training film.
11/04/04
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