Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

A very confronting feminist French independent movie by the always provocative Catherine Breillat, based on her own book Pornocratie.It tells the story of the meetings that a straight suicidal woman and a guy man (paid by her) have during four nights in an isolated house by the beach. When she hires him, she says, watch me where and the way I'm not be watched, no need to touch, just say what you see. She's just playing a trick on him, as the following nights will prove that she wants him to touch her. The male character will be progressively intrigued and emotionally confused by her conversations and interaction with the woman. The woman not only offers her body to be watched, to be touched and used in any way, but also offers lecturing monologues on female sexuality and anatomy. She tries to understand why guy men reject the female body, and also why patriarchal societies and the male psychology have always reacted to the female body (and to women) by incarcerating it, subjugating it, demonizing it, considering impure and worth of repulsion, but also acceptable as an object of pleasure for men, and, because of it, obscene. The movie, it could be said, is a rejection of religious morality on women and the female body, and patriarchal societies.The movie has some reminiscences of The Last Tango in Paris, although with reverse roles. The story happens in an empty house, in a confined room, one of them marks the rules (in this case the woman), they don't mention their names, and they explore their sexuality outside any social constriction. However, there is no lightness or warmth in this movie, as most of it is set at night-time, and the atmosphere is always uninviting and artificial, with the predominance of greenish lights and run-out colors.As in other Breillat's movies, the dialogs are the core of the movie and not the flesh we see in it. This is one of Breillat's merits, to transcend sexuality and speak of deeper themes while focusing on naked bodies having sex. The dialogs are always so through provoking, so deep and philosophical, that you have to give her credit for that.However, unlike Romance, Breillat does not succeed in mixing the explicitly sexual content with the points she wants to make in an engaging way. I thought that a couple, fully dressed, with enough dramatic expertise, and the same dialogs, would have been able to transmit the same message, even better because the viewer could have focused on the dialogs. Even if you like philosophy and you are interested in unsimulated sex scenes, you still feel that the settings are dull. When the movie is not dull is truly confronting and repulsive, very hard to watch. The sex scenes won't make anybody horny, as they are full of atavistic feelings, even animalistic in a way, and you don't feel that the characters get any pleasure out of it. I found very disturbing the scene with the small injured bird, all the ones involving menstruation, the vaginal hairy shots, and the rake scene, which are all very symbolic but confronting nonetheless.On the other hand, I don't think the viewer can understand why the male character has to be gay and not straight, and why Breillat assumes that gays reject women because they are repulsed by them in any way. Anybody who has gay friends knows that they like women, but they are just sexually attracted to men not to women. Two very different things. I found this slip misleading, simplistic and unnecessary, not proper of Breillat, who is cleaver enough to explore themes with great depth. I would have preferred, as a woman, to have a straight man in the movie.I did like and hate the end, both things. To me, is mostly oniric, like a projection of the thoughts of the male character when he doesn't find the woman in the house. However, other people interpret the scene as real. The problem is that the scene is filmed hurriedly and is badly introduced so it is difficult to catch the meaning of it, if any.Regarding the acting, Amira Casar is OK in her role, with her expressive very sad aura and her almost artistic naked body; however, all what she says, would have needed of more dramatic intensity. Rocco Siffredi gives his best in this role; however, you cannot really pass over the fact that he can barely act. If he did, he would have turned himself into a gay guy. I never believed, not even for a microsecond, that the character he was playing was a gay. However, Breillat stated that he had written the character for him and that she was very impressed with him.Anatomy of Hell offers a noticeable deconstruction of female sex and sexuality and a feminist study of gender roles, but it it is extremely complex and repulsive (even kinky) at times, so it barely reaches and touches the viewer. Breillat included some notes to the movie in the DVD, in which she explains the movie at length. If you read it, you'll find how philosophical the movie is, and the meaning of each scene and the intentions of the film. They are really interesting. However, the viewer did not have those notes when went watching the movie, so he/she only can see what is in the screen and try to make sense of it.One of those films that won't leave you indifferent.

There are some films you watch to get a message and this is one of the most surprising. The director sees a dichotomy in men's views of women which some women internalize. Paglia talks about the same thing, without focusing on the 'infernal' part that dominates this film. What is similar in Paglia and Breillat's views is that men admire tidiness, completeness, finality; they see the world in an almost binary way. They see women as complicated by the potential to create life and abhor the mechanisms that support that creation. Paglia calls it the Apollonian vs Dionysian. Breillat doesn't use those terms, but might think of it as Apollonian vs Cthonian. I personally don't have this view, but I've heard about it long enough to assume it's widespread among men.Breillat relieves us men of the overgeneralization by using a sexually ambiguous character to act as the "watcher of the unwatchable." Our heroine is ambiguous, too, in that she wants the opposite of what she claims and has chosen a difficult path to get it. I am conflicted in how to rate this film. It is simple on the surface, and deals with a lot of imagery that will be intolerable to some viewers (other reviews on IMDb reflect that). As the launching point of discussion between men and women, this film serves its purpose. But I do not see this as a film that a man and a woman should watch together, because their respective reactions may color and diminish the other's experience.

I know that Breillat has a lot of big fans - personally I've only seen FAT GIRL, which I thought to be promising, but ultimately failed by what I felt to be a "tacked-on" ending that felt out of place with the rest of the film, and only seemed included to add an extra bit of shock-value to an otherwise solid film. ANATOMY OF HELL is another film that is somewhat interesting, but seems to lose itself in it's own "contemplative-ness".A woman (Amira Casar), who obviously has severe feelings of self-loathing, meets a gay man (porn "legend" Rocco Siffredi), when Rocco enters a bathroom where the woman has just cut her wrist with a razor-blade. Rocco takes the woman to a doctor to get fixed-up, and she decides to blow Rocco on the walk home. She is apparently intrigued by his ability to bust a nut with her in this fashion, being that he's gay and all - so she pays him to come over to her place for a few nights to "display" herself for him and to have lengthy discourses about the disgust and/or awe that men feel for female genitalia. Rocco's input in said conversations comes from a somewhat unique point-of-view, as initially, he is repulsed by vaginas in general, and therefore can speak freely and honestly about the topic. But invariably, his curiosity of the organ gets the better of him, and the two begin some strange "explorations", including rock-dildo insertion, used-tampon water drinking, and vaginal rake insertion - all culminating in feelings of near-obsession on Rocco's part, and his realization of what all straight guys the world over have always known: as great as pussy is - it really is the root of all of our problems.I applaud Breillat's willingness to tackle "touchy" subjects, and to do so on film with graphic, voyeuristic views into her character's lives - but just as with FAT GIRL - I felt that the film was a relatively interesting concept that just didn't have enough "substance" to sustain it as a full-length film. The performances were solid, and I felt that Rocco especially did a good job as the conflicted gay man who has become enthralled with the hoo-ha. But again, I don't really see what the real point of the film is, other than to state the obvious - men and women will never understand each other, and most of this is due to our conflicting views on sex and sexuality...6/10

I have recently embarked upon a period where I have invested a great deal of time viewing foreign and independent films. I have reached a time wherein Hollywood's view of life is a bit too sunny and a bit too pat. However.....my survey of many of these films are about to send me scurrying back to the pat and plastic Hollywood answers to love and sex. The Anatomy of Hell is the most extreme example of what I have confronted.Are there bad men? Yes, without a doubt, there are pitiful examples of manhood, world wide. However, they are bad men because they are bad men. They are not bad men only to women. Men who need to control and dominate are equal opportunity offenders, the presence of a vagina or menstrual blood has nothing to do with their idiocy. I have worked twenty-five years, with the victims of misogyny as a social worker/counselor. I have confronted the users and abusers of women and have concluded first and foremost that they are usually men who don't love themselves and incapable of loving anyone, male or female. They are very damaged individuals.The vast majority of men love, like and respect women. We're different. We see things differently. We experience things differently. One is no better than the other. Indeed, I would submit that this is why we work best in pairs. Male/female couples allows us to view the world more completely. Your off-sex partner can interpret, explain, and clarify things to you that we don't quite "get." And how do you form the bond that makes this mutual sharing possible? It's called love.Hollywood tends to peddle romantic idealism, while foreign and independent films tend to sell love and sex as an unending gender war. I have no problem with feminist perspectives. This film, however, is too, too extreme--its indictments too broad. Can we all benefit by becoming better people? No doubt, but I am certain that the real answers that we are seeking lay between Hollywood and The Anatomy of Hell. I'm just not seeing it yet. I guess that I still have other films to watch.