Anatomy of Hell

January 28, 2004 0 By Fans
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Plot

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

Release Year: 2004

Rating: 4.3/10 (2,341 voted)

Critic's Score: 29/100

Director:
Catherine Breillat

Stars: Amira Casar, Rocco Siffredi, Alexandre Belin

Storyline
A man rescues a woman from a suicide attempt in a gay nightclub. Walking the streets together, she propositions him: She'll pay him to visit her at her isolated house for four consecutive nights. There he will silently watch her. He's reluctant, but agrees. As the four nights progress, they become more intimate with each other, and a mutual fascination/revulsion develops. By the end of the four-day "contract", these two total strangers will have had a profound impact on each other.

Writers: Catherine Breillat, Catherine Breillat

Cast:

Amira Casar

The woman


Rocco Siffredi

The man


Alexandre Belin

Blow-job lover 1


Manuel Taglang

Blow-job lover 2


Jacques Monge

Man in bar


Claudio Carvalho

Boy with bird


Carolina Lopes

Little girl playing doctor


Diego Rodrigues

Little boy playing doctor


João Marques

Little boy playing doctor


Bruno Fernandes

Little boy playing doctor


Maria Edite Moreira

Pharmacist 1


Maria João Santos

Pharmacist 2


Pauline Hunt

Amira Casar's stand-in


Catherine Breillat

Narrator

(voice)



Details

Official Website:
Official site |

Release Date: 28 January 2004

Filming Locations: Ericeira, Portugal

Opening Weekend: €8,920
(Italy)
(11 July 2004)
(13 Screens)

Gross: €8,920
(Italy)
(11 July 2004)



Did You Know?

Trivia:

Director Catherine Breillat wrote 'the man' especially for Rocco Siffredi.



User Review

A masterpiece of French cinema

Rating: 10/10

This is not a film that everyone will enjoy – it is intellectually
taxing, fairly low on plot, and deliberately contains sexual scenes
that
many people will find offensive or upsetting. In Britain and America,
we
assume films are made for entertainment, but tolerantly accept those
that
are patently art for art's sake, for the dissemination of ideas, or
the
questioning of commonly held views. I imagined being at the same premiere
in
France or Latin America – the heated debates that would follow over
the
gender politics, the validity of the symbolism, whether the
underlying
concepts were valid. In Britain, even at a film festival, we had the
same
old stuff about the genesis of the film, working with the actors etc
(all
valid enough) then a sharp split between people who obviously had a brain
in
their head and the men – and women – who just felt it was pretentious
to
waffle on when you could be making comments about the erect penis of porn
star Rocco Siffredi. But before dealing with the knobs question, a brief
synopsis . ..

A woman walks through a gay nightclub. She is obviously alienated – it
is
not clear from what – she goes to the toilets and tries to slit her
wrists.
A man rescues her. After a short interlude she arranges to pay this
(gay)
man, for four nights, to watch her, to tell her what it is that disgusts
him
about women. The nights and acts that fill them are accompanied
by
soliloquies by both the man and the woman as each states their primal
sexual
understanding of the other.

The dialogue is fairly heavy – it could be put alongside works
of
philosopher Jacques Derrida (it follows on quite nicely from
his
deconstructionist theories) or the more extreme ideas of Shere Hite. Much
of
it has great poetic beauty – aided by the fact that the two characters
are
purely symbolic (this according to Breillat herself) – they represent
a
primal man and woman, not in the context of any religious genesis, but
the
two first adults dealing with their sexual reactions to each other.
Breillat
describes herself as a 'purist' (and also heterosexual) and says she
finds
many of the images disturbing and that is exactly why she wished to
portray
them – to ask why we find images (such as a used tampon) so disgusting
when
they are everyday things and have no inherent 'awfulness' or reason why
they
should be considered shameful. But she does not just ask the question or
try
to shock – she counters the emotion that has been evoked, explains it
(the
explanation may not be to everyone's liking but it is internally
consistent
and academically arguable) and uses the example as one of
the
stepping-stones to communicate some of her ideas about
sexuality.

One of Breillat's main ideas she seeks to get across in this film is that
although a person 'has' an undeniable
physical sex, their actual sexuality – their bodies and everything
that
makes them sexually attractive, is heavily involved with the
meanings,
ideas, fantasies or other things we attach to that body. We find a
person
'sexy' because of what we think about them, what they mean to us,
our
understanding of them, how they make us feel, and this is projected onto
the
'nice bum' aspect. Breillat says this is what distinguishes us
from
animals – our ability to attach meaning to sex (I hope I have quoted
her
accurately – not easy when working through a translator and writing
the
notes up some hours afterwards). We do this by means of desire, which
means
we project outwards what is inside. It is not automatic 'sex
for
reproduction and continuation of the species' – human beings have sex
to
satisfy our desires. The woman's body is seen in the film in ways that are
normally 'unsexy' – it is the context and meaning subsequently applied which
make it sexy – this is highlighted by the gay man's attitude (and meanings)
that he attaches to all women.

The sex between the man and the woman in the film is not tender or loving
in
any usual sense of the word. The gay man has great problems coming to
terms
with the idea of having sex in any form with the woman,
especially
penetrating her (a blow job didn't seem to upset him quite so much).
His
ideas of disgust for the female sex are well-developed and
well-articulated.
She, on the other hand, can see many of the male attitudes that he
displays
in an extreme form in all men, and can reduce male sex drive into
fairly
simplistic psychological forces.

It could be argued that it is not productive to do this, that the
perceived
male desire to dominate, to take possession, to control, to glory in
his
penetrative power, are pretty base instincts that are better sublimated
or
reinvented. This, in fact, is what we do – but seeing them in such a
raw
form, not animalistically but portrayed by an articulate,
self-examining
man, gives us a power of knowledge, we can also argue. The theory
also
explains a lot of female psychology (with which Breillat says she is
mostly
concerned) and probably most of women's hang-ups about men. Anatomy of
Hell
has also been described as a companion to her earlier film, Romance,
which
follows a woman's quest for sexual self-knowledge and 'liberation'.
But
where Romance just asked questions, the woman in Anatomy of Hell
has
answers – and most of the things she believes are oppressive to women
(the
cause of women's problems) are about ill-considered, illogical, but
near
universal male attitudes to sex. The film is not 'anti-male' – it struck
me
as more about coming to terms with fundamental drives and then deciding
how
to handle them. In the case of the gay man, his choice is to switch
off
completely, not concern himself with a sex that controls him by means of
its
fragility, or alternately tempt him to violence and anger.

There is considerable discussion in the film about male and female
psychodynamics – the male desire for 'dominance and control' for instance.
It is expressed in fairly extreme form, as it might be in classical drama.
(To get a handle on it, try reading Shere Hite's analysis of male-orientated
definitions of sexuality.)

The whole movie is underscored with vivid photography and images.
(minor
spoilers follow.) When the woman is in the nightclub, she is seen against
a
background that totally isolates and distinguishes her from everyone
else
there. When she explains the female nature of the sea, how it seems
so
strong and masculine but is really a feminine symbol, we see the
waves
crashing at close quarters. Later on, when the man strolls confidently
along
the cliff top, we see the waves crashing far below him – something he
cannot
reach, and which is vaguely threatening if he looked too closely. The
woman
explains the symbolism of menstrual blood to him – the only blood that
is
spilled without the need for a wound, how it is 'purer' therefore than
any
blood that a man could spill. She delights in his appearance, covered in
her
blood, after she has had sex with him, and when he returns to the empty
room
where she once lay, he lifts the blood-stained sheets as if lifting
on
object of holiness, and his manner is devout (and the sheets also look
like
a shroud).

Breillat, in this cinematic illustration from her novel, has provided
us
with a deconstruction of the feminine mystique. She has confronted us
with
our prejudices, the inbuilt forces inherent in the 'battles between
the
sexes', she has given us two examples of human beings liberating
themselves
from their own disgust with their own bodies. Most of all, to
cinephiles,
she has made a classic that redefines French cinema at the forefront of
art,
justifiable breaking false boundaries set by years of censorship,
(self-loathing?) and the effective ban on art to explore our deepest
psyche.
She has asked age-old questions but, remarkably, she has also provided
her
answers. Behold the work of a cinematic genius in our lifetime, treasure
her
integrity and devotion to her work, use this example of art to be
inspired,
to self-examine – or join the milling throngs calling for
mind-deadening
Americanised cinematic art-substitutes.

(p.s. this is the first non-mainstream film I have given a 10/10 rating to

it is simply a superlative accomplishment in its genre, accessible to
anyone
who applies sufficient intelligence – which rules out most critics, and
a
lasting contribution to the study of male-female psychology, gender
politics
and sexual awareness.)