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Reviews2
dargossett's rating
How can a film be a 10 and a 1 at the same time? As serious art, Boom is a bomb. Yet, as a testimony, a very camp testimony, to the lives of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noel Coward, and Tennessee Williams, it is literally hysterical. As the Age of Aquarius was dawning on America, what were these pioneers of love, lust, decadence, and existential meaning to do? What is there to say, to do, to perform, two years after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1968. the play Hair is delighting Broadway. The hippies have overtaken the Beats. Where can the stars go? To the Old World, Europe, Italy, Capris... The movie reveals their state of mind: preoccupation with death, the emptiness of wealth, sex, and luxury. As we watch this undeniably amusing costume melodrama, we can't help wondering just what Taylor and Burton's "real" life there in Sardinia must have been like. Did they throw tantrums when their whims went unsatisfied, or was it the opposite? I'll have to leave the answer to the biographers. But this film makes it impossible not to imagine them all there in Italy, trying with desperation NOT to be what they were portraying. That is what makes the film intriguing.
This film is the opposite of pornography. The explicit sex displayed is integral to the character and relational development. More a study of how sex impacts the emotional self than a traditional story or plot, Shortbus sports a joie de vivre that is irresistible. This is unlike any film we have seen before in that genuine sexual exchange not only takes place, but is crucial to understanding the rather romantic point of the film, namely, that sexual intimacy can be healing for the individual psyche as well as for the relationship of couples brave enough to explore their ways of fulfillment. Those without a romantic view of sex and love may be put off by these scenes of ecstasy and intimacy if they turn a cynical eye on the action. Yet the music-- as in Hedwig-- and the naive view that sexual freedom might just save the world is certainly enticing.