Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.
31 Oct Sex and Lucia (2001)
And the Story Starts Again Halfway
Written reality. I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing this soon after Ruiz’s Proust. Both about writers creating a life.
Time folding. Narrative layers.
The three sisters from ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ here named Alsi/Elana, Lucia (the Alice, an anagram, in fact one that Carroll used) and Belin. The story is to Alice, for Alice, about Alice and generates the world that Alice lives in. The lighthouse and hole.
It is less than intelligent in the level of the story: lust drives meaning, but that’s because the written novel is at that vulgar level. This film starts slow and ordinary, just as the novel within. But we soon weave all sorts of ambiguous narrative threads, each creating the other. The last half of the film is a bedtime story, a novel, a suicide note, a coma-induced dream, a recipe, an internet communication, a climax-induced hallucination, a blindfolded taste.
A man loves three women. Another man mirrors him. Lots of coupling, ethereal angst,
Two of the sisters plus the author (and his double), all possibly dead (all possibly fictional), on the island of conception. And the story starts again halfway.
Some lightly nuanced direction here. Endearment without cloying. The only thing in this film that is not sensually romantic is that the computer is a PeeCee and not a Mac. You’d think they’d know.
Posted in 2002
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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