- Also Known As:
- Unknown
- Year:
- 1980
- Country:
- Predominant Genre:
- Fantasy
- Director:
- Outstanding Performances:
- None
- Premiss:
- Scientist conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber that may be causing him to regress genetically.
- Themes:
- Alienation
- Christianity
- Compassion
- Destiny
- Emotional repression
- God
- Loneliness
- Personal change
- Political Correctness
- Self-expression
- Sexual Repression
- White culture
- Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
- Unknown
- Review Format:
- Cinema
The usual romanticism from Ken RUSSELL (the lapsed Anglican) only, this time, it does not work as well as it used to.
In an advanced technological culture like the West, it is all too tempting to forget about noumena and focus exclusively on the world of phenomena; ignoring the needs of the inner person. This is why Whites, in particular, are as divorced from their own selves as they are in this movie. And, thus, so prone to the same self-destructive behaviors.
There is much talk here about absolute truth and God, yet little evidence of a desire to really want to grow up and to grow away from the childish belief in a supreme being, in order to face the fact that only one’s self is ultimately responsible for one’s own actions.
The self-reflexive drama-within-a-drama of a man coming-to-terms with his need to externalize his emotions, in order to achieve happiness, is not well-served by an elliptical narrative. As he struggles to find his real self, the plot and the story struggles to find a means of expression that does not sometimes tip over into the same emotional self-indulgence experienced by the central character.
Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this posting in any format; provided mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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