Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

tieman64 "Where is the thread now? Off again! The old trick! Only I discern the infinite passion, and the pain, of finite hearts that yearn." – Robert Browning"There are no sexual relations." – Jacques Lacan "Paint not the thing, but the effect it produces." - Mallarmé "Eros" is comprised of three short films, one by director Wong Kar-Wai, one by director Steven Soderbergh and one by Michelangelo Antonioni. The topic of each film is "love", Wong's film a melodrama about a tailor's infatuation with a woman whose dresses he makes and Soderbergh's involving a zany discussion between an advertising executive and a psychotherapist. The meta-story here, though, is of Soderbergh and Wong's love for Antonioni, whom both cite as an influence and inspiration.Unsurprisingly, Antonioni's contribution to "Eros", "The Dangerous Thread of Things", is the most interesting film of the bunch. Shunning the melodrama of Wong Kar-Wai and the nervous tics of Soderbergh, Antonioni instead adopts a more metaphysical tone. The result is a film which has a lingering, haunting sought of impact.As with many of Antonioni's films, "The Dangerous Thread of Things" is less a love story than an "end of love" story. Our main characters, Christopher and Chloe, are ex lovers whose relationship is coming to an end. The film opens with Chris oblivious to Chloe's posed, naked body. They then spend their day bickering and reminiscing about better times, both simultaneously wishing to be free of the other and yearning for a time when things were right between them. Christopher's solution to their problems is to have immediate sex. "Sex is more than you think it is," Chloe sighs.Midway in the film our couple spy several nymphs frolicking beneath a waterfall, and later see a beautiful woman riding on a horse. Chris pursues this woman, following her to a castle whose walls recall the rocky outcroppings amongst which the nymphs played. Chris enters this castle, stepping into cave-like shadows. There he finds the woman. Her name is Linda, Antonioni's representation of a kind of wild, chaotic, independent, but simultaneously idealised, femininity.Cut to Linda masturbating, alone, on a bed. As she climaxes, Antonioni cuts to a shot in which his camera vacates a narrow tunnel to reveal Chris alone on a rooftop next to a metal rooster (literally a cock). The symbolism here is uncustomarily clunky for Antonioni. Moments later Linda and Chris do have sex, however its anticlimactic and the scene ends with Chris literally worshipping at her feet. He's forever entranced, but dares not to pull at her "dangerous threads". To pull, to investigate further, would be to unravel the whole image. Instead he leaves her there, alone in the castle, lost in his mind space.The film ends with Chloe and Chris speaking on the phone. Time and space separate them, but they wish to reconcile. To fix their relationship. Chloe spies some wild horses in the distance and tells Chris that she needs to go retrieve them. Whilst in search of the untamed horses she finds Linda naked on a beach. In an instant, Chloe is also naked. Their shadows come together, though Chloe's shadow, scrawny and flawed, ultimately overshadows Linda's buxom silhouette. Speaking of this moment (30 years before filming it, in one of his notebooks), Antonioni says it is meant to suggest a confrontation between enemies, but also heartache and a friendship. Antonioni holds the image, forces his audience to think about what he's just revealed. Fade to black.Antonioni directed "The Dangerous Thread of Things" when he was 92 years old, crippled, wheelchair bound and had lost the use of his eyes and voice. The director made two masterpieces in his later years, "Michelangelo Eye to Eye" and "Beyond The Clouds", two of his most powerful, formally beautiful films. Unfortunately "The Dangerous Thread of Things" does not reach these heights. Its sound dubbing is terrible, Antonioni's symbolism is clunky, his lighting plain and the film as a whole lacks the moody, dreamy polish of his best works. Notice these are all aesthetic problems, the flaws of a dying artist unable to muster the energy to command the camera and mould his cast. The actual content of the film haunts, and its the only film in "Eros" which actually sticks its claws into you. Even Antonioni's deathbed works posses an invisible power which few directors can replicate.7.5/10 – This review has focused on Antonioni's instalment, but Wong Kar-Wai's short film is also quite good. Revolving around a tailor and the prostitute he is infatuated with, the film suggests that creativity, or specifically the drive for perfection (the sewing of perfect clothes), is driven by the compulsion to cancel desires or to attain the unattainable. Though doomed to failure, humanity forever strives for what is out of reach. Soderbergh's film is the lesser of the three, though fans of actor Robert Downey Junior may find it interesting.Worth two viewings.

rumfoord I rather enjoy watching short films. Like short stories, there's seldom room for more than one good idea, so that idea has to be done well--in the hands of a skilled director, this is an opportunity rather than a limitation. Eros is a collection of three such films, ostensibly sharing a similar theme.Wong Kar Wai's "The Hand" is the first film, and is a premiere example of what a short film can achieve. A concise story about a tailor and a high class prostitute, "The Hand" distills the love/lust theme into a beautiful, intoxicating gem. It is by far the best film of the bunch, perhaps even one of the director's finest.Steven Soderbergh's "Equilibrium" is the second film in the trio, and features a few shots of a naked woman and a long and unrelated dialog between Robert Downey Jr and Alan Arkin. As far as I can tell the film has vanishing little to do with love, lust, passion or sex--and not much else to say about anything. Soderbergh, who's often hit-or-miss, misses big time with this convoluted short.Michelangelo Antonioni's "Dangerous thread" (or however it is properly translated) is quite different from the previous two films. It is certainly on message, featuring lots of full frontal nudity and some sex, but doesn't really have much of a story. It actually feels like it is much closer to succeeding than "Equilibrium", if only because it seems to fit comfortably within its time constraints, but the vacuous plot leaves you bored.In the end Eros is a missed opportunity. After the first film you expect a beautiful tapestry of ideas and perspectives, but it never materializes. Nevertheless, the first film is well worth watching--easily justifying a rental or screening.

bastard wisher For fans of Wong Kar-Wai, his segment "The Hands" is a must-see, as it ranks among his best, most fully-realized works. A truly stunning piece of work that not only summarizes everything great about his film-making, but which is also more focused and less indulgent than some of his more recent work. Unfortunately, the other two segments, from Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni respectively, don't fair nearly as well. Soderbergh's piece, titled "Equilibrium", is a tediously self-conscious exercise in cerebral cleverness, typical of his attempts at uncommercial "art" film-making (as opposed to his usual faceless Hollywood products). It is basically the cinematic equivalent of an obnoxious faux-intellectual laughing at his own "witty" joke. It only further proves what a truly cold, soulless filmmaker Soderbergh is that his segment of an anthology film supposedly based around the theme of sex is completely devoid of sensuality of any kind. Antonioni's closing segment (baring the appropriately pretentious title "The Dangerous Thread of Things") fairs slightly better, but not enough to prevent it from being a sad near self-parody from what was once one of cinema's leading lights. It is tempting to blame Antonioni's stroke (which rendered him wheelchair-bound and mute in 1985) for his piece's dirty old man sensibility (parts of it approach bad soft-core porn), but even that doesn't excuse the film's sheer almost laughable (if it weren't so tragic) pretentiousness. It could nearly pass as a parody of obtuse, incomprehensible European art films. That said, the film is still more than well worth watching for Wong Kar-Wai's film alone. Since it comes first in the chronology, you can easily watch it and then turn it off before the other two.

Mustafa32 One shudders at the disrespect shown here for the master of cinema Antonioni. Clearly one of the five or so greatest directors that has ever lived.His segment is easily the most worthwhile of the three. Wong and Soderbergh provide bland mainstream narratives. Antonioni, whilst not on his 60s form, still sculpts with cinema like no- one else. The acting is stylised, disturbingly so, but not without intention. The composition is gorgeous. The meanings teasingly subtle. There is an indefinable wholesomeness, not a full meal perhaps, but a gorgeous miniature that satisfies the palette and leaves a lingering aftertaste. Yes, there is also some nudity - what are we, five year olds?