User Reviews

Would like to give to have given this film a 7.5 if it was available. Neither the positive review from our local arts newspaper, or the one fairly negative user review already on IMDb "Downbeat Erotica"capture my experience of 'The Future,' seen with a friend at the Vancouver International Film Festival yesterday. Perhaps I was disposed to find value in the film as I had to rearrange my normal Sunday to see it, and I had picked it on the strength of its synopsis, the few available reviews and the role that Rutger Hauer has in it (he is forever associated, for me, with the role of the replicant "Roy" in Blade Runner.) My companion liked it less than me, saying for her, there was something missing in this film. I wouldn't call it my most memorable film ever, but I was very engaged with the main character's journey and several features of this picture intrigued me: • the essential ugliness of the slice of Italy depicted (playing against tourism clichés) especially as it seems to be richly tied to the main character, Bianca's psychological state; as Bianca's mental state changes she remarks on her surroundings reshaping themselves • like the magic realism of the sun that never sets, there is a close relationship in the film between what we see in a supposedly realistic lens, and what is going on for Bianca and to some extent, for her younger brother. It's like a film demonstration of Freudian "projection" • I enjoyed that an inversion between stereotypes of light and dark occur in the thrown-out-of-kilter world of the two orphaned teenagers. Rather than a descent of darkness into their lives in the wake of their parents' sudden death, Bianca and Tomas are beset with insomnia inducing daylight. • the villains are venal, petty, and better housekeepers and cooks than the heroine and her sidekick brother; while they bring a moral mess into the lives of the teens, rather like the serpent offering the apple to Eve, they have quirky traits such as excelling at crosswords and knowledge-based game shows, and are decidedly deficient in the quality of menace • there was a point (no doubt, partially due to Rutger Hauer's appearance in the film) when I thought this film was paying some tribute to Blade Runner's soundtrack, with its pulled-inside-out gongs and weird sounds, and in certain scenes, with the Blade Runner look, with the sudden plunge into chiaroscuro darkness in the apartment of the former Mr. Universe Maciste, played by Hauer. I think the eroticism the other IMDb reviewer touched on should be qualified as very cinematographic and not especially pornographic. Bianca becomes as beautiful and exotic as an oiled, living sculpture in the setting of the blind man's dark mansion—which bears some resemblance to the rambling, toy-filled apartment of J.F. Sebastian in Blade Runner.

Still, I was quite uneasy with being asked to accept Maciste as a good guy when he has apparently been buying teen prostitutes for some time, because he treats Bianca nicely and feeds her. It also felt like the final reel fell off the truck on the way to the editing studios; suddenly we wrap up, with one brief sequence, perhaps, supporting why the Bianca of "The Future" has labelled herself as a criminal at this time in her life. We don't get to know what happened to blind Maciste when he followed her out of his refuge of many decades. What? Either an art house ending or maybe the money ran out.

Somnolent tale of a low voltage heist plot that offers potential for excitement in an unusual twist but sputters to a limp conclusion still born. Rutger Hauer as Maciste. an aged hulk of a washed up body builder/B movie actor who now lives alone in a suitably rundown mansion. Enter Bianca and Tomas, lately orphaned by their parents traffic death, sleepwalking through life until Tomas hooks up with a couple of body builders who move in with the siblings and amazingly turn out to be excellent cooks and housekeepers in contrast to Tomas and his sister. The plot then unfolds (finally) as the guests have a plan to rob Maciste of his money stash with Bianca the interloper who is to locate the goods. But Bianca turns out to have a soft spot in her heart for the old geezer and bails on the deal. The would be thieves then meekly move out without a fuss. The anticipated sexuality never really jells as Maciste is blind and gets his kicks by rubbing down Bianca with oil--all over. Bianca does make herself available to one of the house guests in a strictly physical affair and in a brief moment sizes up her handsome brother as he lies asleep in his jockey shorts One interesting angle are the film clips of a younger Maciste playing the role of Hercules or Samson which Bianca watches and then dreams about as the film attempts to make some kind of psychological connection. What sinks the film is utter detachment all display and even the usual historical monuments of Rome are not enough to make the film worthwhile.

A surprisingly compelling movie. Two Chilean teenagers living in Rome (Bianca and Tomas) became orphans when their parents die in a car accident. Living now alone in an apartment, they soon drop school and find some jobs to sustain themselves: she in a hair salon, he in a gym. Soon, Tomas brings two dubious friends from the gym to live with them in their apartment. These friends, who seem to easily manipulate Tomas, eventually engage Bianca in a seemingly harebrained plot: she has to seduce a former bodybuilder and sword and sandals star named Maciste (played by the veteran Dutch actor Rutger Hauer), who is blind and lives as a recluse in an old mansion in Rome, so she can find the safe in his house where he presumably keeps his fortune. So the rest of the movie is about how the strange relationship between Bianca and Maciste develops. Only the ending is unsatisfying. Playing Bianca, the pretty, petite Manuela Martelli looks a bit sour and expressionless, but is compelling as she appears about half the running time in the nude along the much older Hauer. Based on a novel by the prestigious Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño.

I rented this movie because I loved Alicia Scherson's 2005 movie titled Play, which was delightful. This movie was not. It was relentlessly depressing until the very last few seconds, but by that time I had long since ceased to care what happened to any of the obnoxious characters.

Lesbians and straight men might enjoy watching a teenage Italian girl walk around totally naked and covered in some kind of oil for 90 minutes, but only sleazy fat old men could enjoy watching her have paid sex repeatedly with a sleazy fat old man. The ONLY few seconds of this horrible movie that were tolerable AT ALL were some views of Rome not normally shown in movies.

The respect I had for Scherson after seeing Play has been demolished. I've re-watched Play several times and loved it more each time, but I'd rather have my arm amputated than watch this movie again.