jdadson There's an urban legend that you may have heard. A tourist couple in Hong Kong takes their pet poodle with them to a restaurant, hoping to get the dog fed while they dine. After much hand waving, they think they have made their intentions clear. The waiter takes the dog away and returns some time later with the pooch on a platter, baked with bamboo shoots and garlic.In The Death of Sexual Innocence, Mike Figgis does the old switcheroo, substituting a four person film expedition for the vacationing couple, African tribe members for the Chinese waiter, and a young woman of the expedition for the poodle. After the expedition's driver accidentally runs over and kills a child of the tribe, they gesture back and forth with the tribal elder, trying to convey that one of them will stay while the others go for the police. Get it? The elder, representing the barbaric culture, has in mind a eye for an eye. You might say the young woman was lost in the translation.It is hard to take the movie with the seriousness it aspires to. It may get laughs when it means to be profound. Maybe that's okay. There is the craziest version of the fall of man from the garden of Eden that you are likely to see unless Terry Gilliam has a go at it. That may be the best part. It certainly has the most nudity.The film hops back and forth between sexuality and brutality and illness. It jumps back and forth in time, apparently at random. There are many compelling and exotic images of beauty, violence, intrigue, perversity, and decay.No one clued me in, but here's a tip I would have found very useful: All the boys in the flash-backs -- fat and skinny, blonde and dark haired -- are supposed to be the male lead character at various ages.I found the film enjoyable. I might even watch it again on DVD. But I cannot be sure I won't give it the Mystery Science Theater 2000 treatment when I do.

fedor8 The only thing that makes this painstakingly slow and utterly incomprehensible movie possible to finish in one go is the soundtrack. Otherwise, it's pretty much a typically European pretentious mess.Absolutely nothing connects to anything, at least not in a reasonable, valid or sufficient manner. Many characters, about which we find out almost nothing, are supposedly connected - but only the director knows how (and even that's questionable, since he was obviously on drugs).The dialogues are as scarce as I've seen anywhere before: this certainly doesn't help in clarifying things. The scenes with the black man and white woman playing Adam and Eve (so PC), and their subsequent exile from Eden by police with helicopters is straight out of Monty Python, except that this is a deadly serious pretentious drama and not a spoof.Is there anyone who can watch that scene in which Adam and Eve urinate (we are actually shown the urine leaving the top of his penis), and take that scene seriously? Most of the cast look like they walked straight out of a New York fashion show, and this cheapens the look of the movie substantially. Lars von Trier and his 95-ers must love this garbage.

Kevin Gilmartin A non-linear film scattered with segments of an interpretation of the "Adam and Eve" story from the Bible.The "Adam and Eve" portion of the film was pretty good (I would say better than most fairly straightforward takes on the story), however, I felt during the movie that the inclusion of the story was a little trite and irritating. There's even a moment when the Eve character looks directly at the camera (accusingly). I could have done without it, though I might have enjoyed it as a separate student film-type venture.The individual segments are very good.My overall feeling on the film is that it is often melodramatic and humorless, and left me with the impression that the director thinks very highly of himself. I would use many portions of the film as examples of exactly what NOT to do as a director.

surrealkitten Julian Sands is well labeled as the Muse of director Mike Figgis. After no less than three films where Figgis has successfully coaxed the best performances out of this fine, sadly underapreciated actor, one begins to see an almost DeNiro/Scorsesian reparte' between the two artists. The film itself is quirky, breathless, passionate British celluloid at its most honest, and any project that can make even the bricky, fish-eyed Saffron Burrows look exciting is a success in more ways than one.