Recent viewings

Aria (1987). This is a very odd film. Ten directors were, apparently given carte blanche to produce short films to visually accompany music from various operas. In effect, it's like opera MTV.

The nature and quality of the results is all over the map.

Ken Russell's dreamlike "Nessun Dorma" is easily the most striking and memorable. In the film's most arresting visual image, a woman appears to float in midair among softly glowing clouds while mysterious barbaric figures adorn her body with gleaming rubies. There are subtle hints that all may not be quite as it seems, however. It's an effective surreal short film, and unlike some of the other ones, it has a story which arguably has something to do with the text of the song.

Franc Roddam's "Liebestod" is a dramatic, if depressing, tale of a pair of beautiful but troubled young lovers headed for Las Vegas.

Derek Jarman's "Depuis de jour" offers an affecting series of images as an aging woman fondly recalls a love affair of her youth.

Unfortunately, there are more misses than hits.

The opening segment, "Un ballo in maschera" by Nicholas Roeg, is a rather silly story of political intrigue about "King Zog" of Albania and an attempted assassination. For no apparent reason, King Zog is played by a woman in unconvincing male drag.

Jean-Luc Godard's segment "Armide" has a pair of young women acting distracted and fondling themselves while watching a bunch of musclebound bodybuilders work out. The bodybuilders ignore them. The women strip and start dancing around naked. The bodybuilders still ignore them. The women start threatening them with knives in between seduction attempts, and then start posing "artistically" and screaming in orchestrated rythym. Yes, it's as stupid and exploitative as it sounds, and even more pretentious.

Bruce Bereford's "Die Todt Stadt" offers more naked eye candy, but at least the lovers don't do anything weirder than strip each other out of their sumptuous Renaissance costumes and sing (or, rather lip-synch) to each other naked on a bed.

Julien Temple tries to follow the adulterous spirit of "Rigoletto" with a story of a kinky Hollywood husband and wife, each of whom is secretly cheating on the other. Unbeknownst to each other they simultaneously take their lovers to something that looks like a bordello with themed rooms. He takes a starlet to the "Neanderthal Room". She takes a gigolo to the German mountaineer room. He fondles stuffed animals and tries to get his "date" to take Ecstacy. She dresses up in a baa-lamb costume while her lover dresses up in a Alpine yodeler's outfit. Farce ensues as the cheating hubby and wife almost catch each other repeatedly while wandering around the bordello. Yes, it's as silly as it sounds. No, the comedy doesn't work. Neither is it particularly sexy, unless you happen to share the weird fetishes hinted at.

There's also some kind of story apparently being told through a series of interludes between the segments, in which an opera singer arrives at the opera house, walks through its various rooms, costumes himself, and finally performs the climactic song from "I Pagliacci" to an auditorium empty except for one woman. I suppose there must be a story there, although I couldn't tell what it was.

It's a mixed bag, sort of like sitting down and watching ten randomly-assorted MTV videos.