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Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
Continue to watch the Palme d’Or awards Film. The film won the Palme d'Or at the 42nd Cannes Film Festival in 1989.
The movie tells the story between two men and two women. A man and a woman are a couple. They are very affectionate on the surface, but the sex is not harmonious. Therefore, men often have affair with female sisters who have strong sexual desires. Women who do not feel sexually dissatisfied with men are also very dissatisfied with men, and tell their complaints about men to the psychiatrist, including visits by male classmates. Women like men’s classmates very much, but when they accidentally discovered that they had recorded a lot of videotapes of women talking about “sex”, they were so scared that they never saw him again. The woman’s sister wanted to meet her classmate and came directly to her classmate’s home. Later, the female sister recorded the same videotape to her classmates. After the chat, the younger sister had a fierce sex with the man. The woman found her sister's earrings while cleaning the room, which let her know about the relationship between the man and the sister. The woman hurriedly found her classmates and wanted to record a video about "sex". The two chatted a lot during the video, and finally they had a relationship. After the woman went home, she wanted to divorce the man. The man immediately came to the classmate's house and beat the classmate, and watched all the videos. When leaving, the man told his classmates that he had a relationship with his classmate’s beloved girlfriend during school. In the end, the woman left the man to be with his classmates and reconciled with his sister, while the man lost his client because of repeated missed appointments.
This is a movie that is not well understood. It uses an ordinary extramarital affair story to expose the nature of human beings, that is, lies and sex, and the method used is video tape. So this movie is also called "Sex, Lies and Videotape", how appropriate. The theme of the movie is only to show the essence of human beings, and there is nothing else. It is not like similar movies either sing praises or criticize them. So the theme of this film is not easy to figure out, and not easy to grasp. However, through thinking, we can still understand the intention of the director.
In the movie story, there are several lies: men lie to women in order to cheat; women lie to everyone in order to hide the disharmony of marriage; women lie to men and psychologists in order to suppress their desires; classmates lie to everyone in order to avoid lying It is impotence for people to lie; sisters lie to women in order to cheat on men. From these lies, we can see that the human nature is to love to lie. Everyone tells all kinds of lies in order to achieve their own goals, but the purpose is different. For example, women lie to maintain their marriage and to conceal their own sexual instincts, sisters lie to not want to destroy sister relationships, men lie to maintain a stable family, and the main purpose of classmates lies to deceive women's videos, because only "sex" "Incompetence" is the perfect excuse. It can be seen that the whole story of the movie is composed of several lies.
Another aspect of the film, sex, is also the focus of the film. Men and sisters are typical normal men and women. They desire sex and are also pursuing sex, so there is no need to elaborate. Women and classmates are more unique. A woman is a depressive person, she has a repulsive psychology towards sex. However, when she faced her classmates, she also had desires, and she also hoped to get an orgasm. It can be seen that the woman said that her repulsiveness is a lie, she is just suppressing her desire. When a woman meets a suitable man, her repressed desire is also released. Classmates also have desires. Even if he pretends to be "sexually impotent" and disguise himself, he knows that he also has sexual instincts through the use of video to release his desires. In short, from the descriptions of the four characters in the movie, we can see that sex is human instinct. No matter what kind of interference from the outside world, this kind of desire will not be annihilated.
The description of both sides of the film is drawn through video tape. Videotape is a way of communication. By borrowing this way of communication, people put aside their disguise and speak their true thoughts, making the lie completely disappear. It is precisely because there is no shackles of lies, human instinct-sex-can calmly show people in their true colors. Therefore, the woman confessed her desire, her sister amplified her sexual desire, and the classmate became a normal man and had a relationship with the woman. It can be seen that the key to the whole story is that the video tape is a weapon to expose lies and reveal the truth.
The above is the content of the film, a story of truth and lies, desire and instinct drawn from video tapes. Of course, there is a happy ending at the end of the movie-the woman who tells the truth and confronts her nature, the sister and the classmates have a happy ending, while the man who tells lies is abandoned by his wife, and his work becomes unsatisfactory. It can be said that "good people get good rewards, and evil people get evil rewards." This ending is still too Hollywood, too idealistic.
The filming is excellent. It can be seen from the story and the scene that the film is an independent production with a very small investment, but the director has used very good shooting skills to shoot the film fascinating, which shows the talent of the director. What impressed me most in this film is the use of lenses. There are a lot of slow panning shots in the film, through which the emotions of the characters and the suppressed atmosphere of the film can be expressed. In addition, the film also uses a large number of parallel montages, just like "Party Facing Differences", such as combining women's psychotherapy with men's embarrassment, which is a very subtle expression of the story content. In short, Steven Soderbergh became famous with this film and made an instant hit in Hollywood, which is well-deserved.
The performances of the actors are also great. The male protagonist James Spader is very handsome. He has been middle-aged in "Boston Law" for a long time, but he did not expect him to be so handsome when he was young. In the film, he interprets the protagonist's shy and shy character very real, as if his character in the film is like this. Another male protagonist, Peter Gallagher, is also familiar with him. He was recently seen in "The Bournemouth", but he also didn't expect him to be so handsome when he was young. He played a playboy-like character, very good. The heroine Andie MacDowell is an old face, and she did not expect her to appear in the film. Her acting skills in this film are particularly outstanding, rich expressions, delicate eyes, vivid tone, these all prove that she is a very good acting actor, can interpret the characters so richly. The younger sister, Laura San Giacomo, is equally brilliant. Although the facial features are not very beautiful, her sexy body and charming voice are very attractive to men. It's just that Laura San Giacomo doesn't look like Andie MacDowell's sister.
in conclusion. This is a very obscure feature film. The plot is not too interesting, but the content of the reflection is worth thinking about. This also makes the film still be mentioned by many people after twenty years, and it has become a classic. It is well-deserved to win the Palme d'Or.
Laura San Giacomo
Laura San Giacomo
sequence: 0754
Sex.Lies.and.Videotape.1989.Blu-ray.720p.DTS.x264-CHD
2012-03-21
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