Anatomy of Hell

-- Video Business, 12/1/2004

Color, NR (mature themes, language, nudity, explicit sexual situations), 77 min., DVD $24.99, VHS rental; French with English subtitles

DVD: director's commentary, interview, photo gallery

Street: Jan. 25, Prebook: Dec. 28

First Run: L Int'l., July 2004, NA

Cast: Amira Casar (Sylvia), Rocco Siffredi (Romance)

Director: Catherine Breillat

TLA

A suicidal woman (Casar) visits a gay nightclub and slits her wrists in front of a man (Siffredi), who saves her life. She offers him money to come to her home and watch her for four consecutive nights--an offer that leads to several startling sexual encounters. Avant-garde French filmmaker Breillat has flirted with arty porn before, most noticeably in Romance (which also co-starred Italian porn icon Siffredi), but her earlier efforts aren't nearly as impenetrable or off-putting as this one. Anatomy of Hell is calculatingly provocative and unrelentingly graphic--so much so that we can't describe the sex scenes in any detail. Breillat's dialog is pretentiously vague, and it's never really clear exactly what the woman in the film expects of the man. Casar rates kudos for her incredibly uninhibited performance, and the zombie-like Siffredi, not especially known for his brilliant acting, manages to be affecting in a key scene that finds him weeping uncontrollably after his first, unsatisfactory coupling with Casar's character. It's not hyperbole to say that Anatomy goes where no other film has gone before; the question is, how many viewers are willing to make that trip? This movie will require careful handling, and even so, its appeal will be limited to unusually adventurous patrons. --Ed Hulse