Popular reviews

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  Review by orson houellebecq ★★★★★ 2

  "How many directors do you think use films to fulfill their sexual fantasies?"

  Still one of my favorite Peter Greenaway films, probably his last really great one, despite being perhaps his most misunderstood and hated work. I suspect that much of the derision the film has faced is due to the audacity and perceived self-importance of mounting a deconstructive "tribute" to such a beloved, canonical "classic" art film as Fellini's 8 1/2 (probably not helped any by Greenaway's rather smug personal demeanor). This isn't such a problem for me considering my relative ambivalence toward Fellini and thus my skepticism toward his towering "masterpiece", yet even so I think the superficial gestures of homage in Greenaway's film (not really extending, in…

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  Review by nick ★★★½

  This is Peter Greenway's weird, controversial tribute to Fellini. Contending that Fellini featured beautiful women in his movies so he could have sex with them, and that movies are merely male directors' getaways to fulfill their sexual fantasies, Greenway followed suit with his own version of the "legacy", depicting a rich dad-son duo's plan to create their own harem of, well, 8 ½ women. There is a fine line between misogyny and satire, and 8 ½ Women obviously muddles it, but there are still things to cherrypick here.

  8 ½ Women shines at the beginning and end but fails in the middle. I love how the story provides an intriguing, almost queer look into the father-son relationship, which is very…

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  Review by DNA cinephile🏳️‍🌈 ★★★½

  8 1/2 Women. 1999. Directed by Peter Greenaway. 

  This is Peter Greenaway having fun as a film maker. He was inspired by Fellini’s “8 1/2.” Greenaway utilized his still, well framed cinematography and a talented cast to tell a new Greenaway raw version of “8 1/2.”  John Standing (Philip Emmenthal), Matthew Delamere (Storey Emmenthal) make up the lead cast. Philip becomes a widower and is overcome with severe grief after the death of his wife. Storey wants to ease his father’s grief by inspiring him to take another wife or girlfriend. Unfortunately, Storey persuades him to obtain 8 1/2 women and move them into their Genevan estate. This idea goes incredibly sideways and results in an entertaining film that is among Greenaway’s greats.

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★½ 1

  "How many directors do you think use films to fulfill their sexual fantasies?"

  Greenaway smartly begins stripping masculinity (both figuratively and literally ) to a fragment of fragile dependency. Each woman represents a facet of female irrational impulses and the rationale behind them that turns men into fools; a conglomerate entity that could constitute an essay of lust. Screenplay is faulty and uneven, but the eccentricities are strong enough to satisfy any curious artist. Metaphorical earthquakes and literal shakes.

  75/100

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  Review by Josiah Morgan ★★★★½

  I thought people only did it like this in novels and Swedish cinema.

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  Review by Hallie 💃 ★★★★ 6

  Perhaps Peter Greenaway's messiest film in the way that Vulgar Auteurism tends to pan out, but certainly an attempt of return to his '80s style of filmmaking, with the dry humour, dislikeable characters, and an ending that does justice to the rest of the film. I enjoyed this quite a lot, at least more than his previous '90s work, and just below par of that before it. I think the satire comes across rather well overall and misreading it as simple misogyny is missing the point entirely. It was nice to see how this can be considered a retelling or deconstruction of Fellini's 8½, especially from the viewpoint of actual characters rather than blatent caricatures of the filmmaker himself. Also…

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  Review by The Clyde 1

  "The penis, if you think about it, is the greatest engineering feature imaginable... Hydraulics, compression, propulsion, heat sensibility... It has practically every engineering characteristic. Towers, low bridges, rocket ships... there's no man-made engineering structure to match it."

  Greenaway is a fucking genius.

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  Review by Frances Meh ★★

  hoes, dad

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  Review by Adam Cloutier

  Greenaway's later film is so open in its sexuality that it's bound to turn most people off immediately and speaking so directly on many related topics that that is sure to annoy or offend the rest. As is expected from Greenaway and/or Vierny there isn't a shot a step below exemplary.

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  Review by Cate ★★★★

  It's under duress, so somehow legitimate.

  Visual and sexual gluttony rendered with painterly cold and staticity. Lavish bad taste – deeply funny and fucked.

  A father and son who understand women as shoes and hats, as maids, as sex objects turned unruly, ("my fantasy has no God in it – just naked nuns!"), as a list of names divorced-beheaded-died, as victims and victors.

  I wish the racism of the leads had been interrogated in the same way that their misogyny is, instead of leaning on sexual stereotypes of Japanese women and black men.

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  Review by Chris 🍉 ★★★★

  “All this narcissism’s rather boring, isn’t it?”

  A misleadingly breezy watch for such a troubling and complicated film. I hate how many times I face the age old question of “how much racism can I stand to tolerate from a filmmaker I respect/admire/appreciate?”, especially when the filmmaker in question is a voice as unique in the medium as Peter greenaway (and sacha vierny. Though Michael nyman is sorely missed). I can get into the problematic “man making film about misogyny through the lens of misogynistic male protagonists” if done as thought provokingly as this, but the racism doest’t seem to be challenged on the same level and so frequently lands as mere quirk rather than thoughtfully explored theme. Orientalism isn’t…

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  Review by SwedishLlama ★★★

  In 1999, two directors I really admire tried their hand at the sex comedy genre - one of them was Gregg Araki’s Splendor and the other was this, Greenaway’s 8 1/2 Women. As films, they couldn’t be more different.

  8 1/2 Women completely flew over my head. The fact I haven’t seen any Fellini films can’t help that fact, so it’s possible I’ll return to it after watching 8 1/2 and a few others. The film is also desperate for a good restoration and hopefully some interviews/commentary where Greenaway can talk about it so I have any idea what’s going through his head.