Intimidade

Intimacy (2001) was co-written and directed by Patrice Chéreau. The movie stars Mark Rylance as Jay, the head barman at a club. Somehow, he has met Claire, played by Kerry Fox. To Jay's surprise, Claire reappears every Wednesday at his apartment to have sex with him. (That's the only way to phrase it. They don't talk, and there's no foreplay. They just tear their clothes off and go at it.) There's plenty of nude scenes of both Fox and Rylance. However, it's not really erotic, because the apartment is so dirty and unkempt that all I could think of was "it's disgusting."

Matters would have apparently continued along in this way, except that Jay wants to know more about Claire. He manages to track her down to a pub/theater, where she's starring in "The Glass Menagerie." This brings him into contact with Andy, Claire's husband, played brilliantly by Timothy Spall.

The plot really begins at this point, and I will carefully avoid explaining what happens next. I won't avoid saying that the plot appeared contrived and, basically, ridiculous. I wasn't familiar with the work of Kerry Fox, but she's an excellent actor. Rylance and Spall are great actors. It's hard to understand just what went wrong with this film. Some reviewers have suggested that director could have made a better movie in France than in England. Maybe we in the English-speaking world think that this bizarre plots works better if the actors are smoking Gauloises and drinking wine, rather than smoking Mayfairs and drinking ale.

If you really want to see this movie, you'll have to decide whether you want to see all the sex (unrated version) or just the suggestion of sex (R-rated version). The movie has no real outdoor scenes, so it will work as well on DVD (which is how we saw it) as it will on the large screen. This isn't a great movie for anyone. If you want porn, buy porn. If you want narrative drama, buy narrative drama. Intimacy promises both, and gives you neither.

Though it may not achieve all its aims, Patrice Chereau's would-be existentialist drama, adapted from stories by Hanif Kureishi, makes a welcome change from the recent run of London-based thrillers and comedies. Intriguing while it focuses on the obsessive sexual relationship between non-committal Claire (Kerry Fox) and embittered, divorced Jay (Mark Rylance), the film tends to lose its way as more characters and situations are introduced. Shot, with a lot of hand-held camera, in Jay's untidy flat, in crowded bars, and in busy South London streets, about the only visually beautiful frames are those showing Claire's and Jay's intertwined naked bodies, relaxing after their frenzied love-making.

Meeting once a week, and hardly speaking to each other, both Claire and Jay seem to be satisfied with little more than sex; but his curiosity takes over, he begins to follow her, and is resentful and envious when faced with the realisation that she has a life of her own and may simply be using him. The movie explores questions such as - how far can sex alone can take a relationship; and do words add to or detract from love? Another theme is that of role playing, on the stage and in life.

Both Fox and Rylance are superb in their scenes together; and Timothy Spall is excellent as Claire's talkative, down-to-earth husband. But I confess to finding Claire's friend Betty (Marianne Faithfull) a baffling character. Some sequences, particularly those involving Jay's friend Victor (Alastair Galbraith) and gay French barman Ian (Philippe Calvario), seem simply to be padding. Possibly, Chereau felt the need to insert personalities and scenes from Kureishi's books, even though these were not relevant to the central Claire-Jay situation. Finally, yes, the over-hyped explicit sex is necessary for the movie to work.

'Intimacy' is a very well acted drama, set in London. Jay has left his wife and son a year ago, and lives a disordered life, working as a barman, and carrying some ambiguous relationships with a couple of friends. He meets weekly a woman, Claire, with which he has a pure sexual affair, without any communication, a la 'Last Tango in Paris'. Things start to go wrong in this affair, when apparently involved he follows and finds out the background of the woman, and befriends her husband and young son.

The film is not easy, and sometimes the border between complexity and confusion is crossed. However, the acting is so good that the characters are just alive. Life is confusing as well many times, after all.

The film has many explicit sex scenes, and they have their place in the story line. This film is to a big extend about communication, and sex is the main way of communication between Jay and Claire for much of the film. Will this be enough to sustain their relationship? Well, go and see the movie and you will find out.

8/10 on my personal scale.

A disturbing, theatrical, thought-provoking, difficult-to-watch film which revolves around a sexual relationship between two people who almost never talk to each other. There is passion but no intimacy in this relationship, in fact there is no intimacy between any of the characters in this film. The male character begins to yearn intimacy, but the female character seems content with 'meaningless' sex. Overall the film is a dark and uncomfortable study, well acted but a bit too "arty" for my liking.

You will very, very rarely see a film with such explicit sex made is L.A. Thats because, since long ago American filmmakers worry tons more about their rating and therefore the box office attendance.

"We better not go too far, we'll loose money" is the bottom line in Hollywood. The raw and and utterly believable sex scenes are the symbol in this independent film for the sincerity and genuine attempt by the filmmakers to tell a story about how people might really behave under certain conditions.

That being said, the story line becomes harder to accept as the plot unfolds. Even tho the acting is superb by every player, the more that happened, the more distanced I became. Conflict between characters and their motivation became just more and more unbelievable, even irritating. You see the writer pushing and pushing the storyline until you don't care about the story anymore, instead of being taken in and moved, as one should be. (In spite of the writing, the film is definitely worth seeing and nevertheless refreshing in the face of Star Vehicle Movies, Action Junk, as well as guarded and censored sex scenes that are the standard fare of Hollywood standards today).

This film was made with the sentiment of "Let's make a good movie, no holds barred, no matter what" instead of "Make a movie about whatever you want, but make sure its a hit at the box office".