Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye

What can I say?! An assault upon the senses, certainly and I feel I should have read the book first. Or maybe not. Artily shot and still erotic, although the continuous walking up the stairs in the deserted building, towards the end stretches one's endurance, as does the 15 minutes or so of static at the end. Thank goodness for fast forward on the remote. Still at least I was pressing forward and not stop. Before everything seems to slip into a nightmare scenario there are, for the record, a surprisingly erotic gay sex scene and a similarly effective lesbian one. The turn for heterosexuals comes in the deserted building and is a tawdry affair with coughing and pissing. Also the examination of what I assume to be caesarean scars remind one of the hard to watch forceps assisted birth at the start. The casual violence with a snip here and a wrench there perhaps foreshadowing what is to come. Narrative may be the scourge of the middle class but total lack of any certainly makes life a little difficult. Mind you being the son of a mad, blind and violent father I don't suppose life was a bowl of cherries for Mr Bataille.

There are a couple of mildly interesting ideas here but basically it just comes over as a string of tediously extended hardcore sex scenes performed by art students. Associating it with Bataille is ridiculous - the only link is the openness about sex. But in terms of aesthetic interest there's no comparison at all. In short: don't bother.

Georges Bataille's History of the Eye is one of the most interesting french erotic / pornographic novels of the 20th century. At the same time, it's really distressing in the context of Batailles own biography. This base is not easy for an adaption and should not be interpreted word by word to the medium movie. Andrew McElhinney made an art-porn movie inspired from Bataille as well as from Querelle (Fassbinder). Bataille is giving a framework for this masterpiece.

The first two scenes really set the mood of this, especially the one that is not often mentioned on these boards about the guy with the joy stick and the women on stage in the top hats. I was quite fond of the music and sound element in this flick, especially during the male/male scene. I like bondage porn and I like pretentiously artsy stuff, so this one was kind of in the bag for me, but I can see where it wouldn't cater to too huge an audience. I've never read the book, but it certainly made me want to. After reading it I expect to find that it was more budget limitations that kept this one so cut down from the amount and quality of content that the original author had in mind.

I do like how well it balanced an arousing pornographic element with art-house style experimental film. The lighting work and some of the camera angles did throw back to some of Kenneth Anger's work, also the somber classical piano in the male/male scene. The progression of the sex was not unlike most porn with the exception of the obligatory climax which I think is overrated, even in gay porn. Honestly, the scenes could have been like 3-5 minutes shorter each and I don't think we would have missed the erotic element (unless it takes you a while to get off) and had room for another scene, but again I would imagine that that is directly related to funds.

All in all, if you call it porn, it is by far the best porn flick I've ever seen. If you call it experimental or an art film, it wasn't as compelling as Anger or even as abstract or pretentious as "The Pig --cking Movie", but I still put it up in a class of one of the more interesting movies I've seen in some time.

93, --DH

I went into this film not knowing what it was about. We had just finished seeing another independent film, which finished early and was great, so we went to this one since it was the next one playing. The ticket seller did say the movie was sexually explicit. In mind, that meant something like the deleted scene from Angel Heart. However, what we saw was hard core.

It is kind of sad to see what some people think of as art these days. This was a porno movie plain and simple. Just think, I can edit a porno movie and splice it with a dance number and a breech birth and can it an independent film. People just get over your repression and buy a real porno movie at least you'll see a ---shot as well.