"A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy"
What an intriguing title if you're not quite familiar with the work of Shakespeare or Bergman, it reads itself as if Woody Allen was so trusting our general knowledge that he expected us to know what would sneak behind the bush of this charming title. Well, for one thing, I'm not familiar with what it is referring to, but nonetheless I thought it would be the opportunity to tackle some sexual issues with a subtly comedic tone, something less raunchy than "Everything You Wanted to Know" yet more sophisticated than "Manhattan". Unfortunately, whatever Allen tried to do, all we got at the end was a timid approach of sexuality in a light-hearted drama.
That's the inconvenience with movies defined by their titles, it better gets it right... and in this unfortunate case, Allen didn't have the gutsy approach that could have inspired more passionate and inflamed moments, and the level of detachment that could have enlightened him about the danger of taking himself too seriously, it's already bad for a dramatic director, let alone a comedic one. Woody Allen takes himself too seriously on a first-degree level and it is so frustrating that I wonder how the fans felt after watching this movie that followed the puzzling "Stardust Memories": Allen's homage to Fellini's "8½" ... when the desire to copy his idols became more and more symptomatic.
Take "Love and Death", which I believe to be his funniest comedy, the movie features many takes on Bergman's iconic shots but the genius aspect is that Allen uses the tone of parody, which creates a clever mix between homage and the awareness of his own comedic talent, something that Bergman could never have achieved. In "Interiors", Allen surprises his world with a dramatic film that can be considered the most Bergmanian non-Bergman film, but he doesn't fool anyone, the movie is so un-Allenian that the feeling of cinematic experimentalism and artificiality could have ruined the film is it wasn't redeemed by the actors' performances, a great script and a tactful direction.
"A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" is in the continuity of "Stardust Memories" but at least the movie features a plot, made of triangular loves, between men whose sexual desire is like a compass with the north deviating from the women they actually love and women who are so apparently moral that the only way for her to admit their own luscious desires is when a man makes the first step. And the film takes place in midsummer, in a natural setting inhabited by never-ending twilights and ephemeral nights, a peculiar cycle governing the natural impulses of all the protagonists. The movie features many magnificent shots accentuated by an enchanting cinematography depicting nature in a hormonal state.
Indeed, Nature steals the show in a film where the acting could have been much better handled. It had a strong lead through the character of Leopold, Jose Ferrer in a flamboyant performance as a rationalist scientist with such a huge ego we would never believe he'd fall into the trap of adulterous basic instincts, since he's already engaged to the angelic Ariel, Andrew's first true love. Andrew is Woody Allen, the wacky inventor and Tony Roberts is a sex-addicted doctor whose personal theory is that 'marriage is the death of hope', he comes with his nurse, Dulcy, played by Julie Hagerty, a woman with a frivolous lifestyle matching Maxwell's personal conceptions. And last but not least, there's Adrian, Andrew's wife, played by Mary Steenburgen, a woman whose rigidity rhymes with another unfortunate word. It's only fitting that it's always the men making the steps because their characters are so well-written that I question the distribution of the roles for the female cast, a weakness that undermines the quality of the film.
Maxwell has a love at first sight with Ariel, but she's so cold and dull that I could never have pictured her as his soul-mate ... while there was much more sex-appeal in Adrian. Dulcy was supposed to exude something that would convince Leopold to live his last hours of freedom but the role is played with such fragility and shyness that I failed to see the appeal again. I don't blame the actresses, although I thought Mia Farrow's performance was awkward and would have better suited the character of Adrian, but at the end, we have the men leading the film and the women's performance is like a self-reflexive take on the script's own weakness, it's as if the story was also sinning by cinematic frigidity. I suspect Allen already had the ending in mind, and a promising script on the paper but on the screen, echoing his own inventions, it failed to take off despite all the pedaling.
The film can be compared to a sexual moment with nice preliminaries ruined by a climax that just comes off too early, and this is what I felt from the ending, a sort of waste of actors' talent, of actors' direction and a bizarre sensation of 'unfinished material'. Each one is entitled to some mistakes, I wouldn't call this film a mistake, because many parts are still enjoyable but there's just something slightly misleading in the title for there's no real sex and no real comedy, only some flirts, some smiles and at the end a big interrogation mark.
This interrogation mark would have been dramatic if we didn't know that Woody Allen would finally pull himself together and bring out his greatest streak of movies in the 80's, with "Hannah and Her Sisters" as the pinnacle, a film with more than six characters but each one written with an extraordinary level of a three-dimensionality that cruelly lacked in "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy", not Allen's best film but still better than some best directorial works
What an intriguing title if you're not quite familiar with the work of Shakespeare or Bergman, it reads itself as if Woody Allen was so trusting our general knowledge that he expected us to know what would sneak behind the bush of this charming title. Well, for one thing, I'm not familiar with what it is referring to, but nonetheless I thought it would be the opportunity to tackle some sexual issues with a subtly comedic tone, something less raunchy than "Everything You Wanted to Know" yet more sophisticated than "Manhattan". Unfortunately, whatever Allen tried to do, all we got at the end was a timid approach of sexuality in a light-hearted drama.
That's the inconvenience with movies defined by their titles, it better gets it right... and in this unfortunate case, Allen didn't have the gutsy approach that could have inspired more passionate and inflamed moments, and the level of detachment that could have enlightened him about the danger of taking himself too seriously, it's already bad for a dramatic director, let alone a comedic one. Woody Allen takes himself too seriously on a first-degree level and it is so frustrating that I wonder how the fans felt after watching this movie that followed the puzzling "Stardust Memories": Allen's homage to Fellini's "8½" ... when the desire to copy his idols became more and more symptomatic.
Take "Love and Death", which I believe to be his funniest comedy, the movie features many takes on Bergman's iconic shots but the genius aspect is that Allen uses the tone of parody, which creates a clever mix between homage and the awareness of his own comedic talent, something that Bergman could never have achieved. In "Interiors", Allen surprises his world with a dramatic film that can be considered the most Bergmanian non-Bergman film, but he doesn't fool anyone, the movie is so un-Allenian that the feeling of cinematic experimentalism and artificiality could have ruined the film is it wasn't redeemed by the actors' performances, a great script and a tactful direction.
"A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" is in the continuity of "Stardust Memories" but at least the movie features a plot, made of triangular loves, between men whose sexual desire is like a compass with the north deviating from the women they actually love and women who are so apparently moral that the only way for her to admit their own luscious desires is when a man makes the first step. And the film takes place in midsummer, in a natural setting inhabited by never-ending twilights and ephemeral nights, a peculiar cycle governing the natural impulses of all the protagonists. The movie features many magnificent shots accentuated by an enchanting cinematography depicting nature in a hormonal state.
Indeed, Nature steals the show in a film where the acting could have been much better handled. It had a strong lead through the character of Leopold, Jose Ferrer in a flamboyant performance as a rationalist scientist with such a huge ego we would never believe he'd fall into the trap of adulterous basic instincts, since he's already engaged to the angelic Ariel, Andrew's first true love. Andrew is Woody Allen, the wacky inventor and Tony Roberts is a sex-addicted doctor whose personal theory is that 'marriage is the death of hope', he comes with his nurse, Dulcy, played by Julie Hagerty, a woman with a frivolous lifestyle matching Maxwell's personal conceptions. And last but not least, there's Adrian, Andrew's wife, played by Mary Steenburgen, a woman whose rigidity rhymes with another unfortunate word. It's only fitting that it's always the men making the steps because their characters are so well-written that I question the distribution of the roles for the female cast, a weakness that undermines the quality of the film.
Maxwell has a love at first sight with Ariel, but she's so cold and dull that I could never have pictured her as his soul-mate ... while there was much more sex-appeal in Adrian. Dulcy was supposed to exude something that would convince Leopold to live his last hours of freedom but the role is played with such fragility and shyness that I failed to see the appeal again. I don't blame the actresses, although I thought Mia Farrow's performance was awkward and would have better suited the character of Adrian, but at the end, we have the men leading the film and the women's performance is like a self-reflexive take on the script's own weakness, it's as if the story was also sinning by cinematic frigidity. I suspect Allen already had the ending in mind, and a promising script on the paper but on the screen, echoing his own inventions, it failed to take off despite all the pedaling.
The film can be compared to a sexual moment with nice preliminaries ruined by a climax that just comes off too early, and this is what I felt from the ending, a sort of waste of actors' talent, of actors' direction and a bizarre sensation of 'unfinished material'. Each one is entitled to some mistakes, I wouldn't call this film a mistake, because many parts are still enjoyable but there's just something slightly misleading in the title for there's no real sex and no real comedy, only some flirts, some smiles and at the end a big interrogation mark.
This interrogation mark would have been dramatic if we didn't know that Woody Allen would finally pull himself together and bring out his greatest streak of movies in the 80's, with "Hannah and Her Sisters" as the pinnacle, a film with more than six characters but each one written with an extraordinary level of a three-dimensionality that cruelly lacked in "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy", not Allen's best film but still better than some best directorial works