Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by Alex

My problem is that it wasn't good sex, it was simply acrobatic. I'll admit it would have been good if it were consensual and freely entered into. Maybe I'm flawed that I can't separate the motivation for the sex from the acts itself to find the latter at all erotic.

The first two weren't meant to be good. The third was essentially rape, and the other two were somewhat ambiguous in light of the third.

Unless the point was that she is simply a sexual submissive who enjoyed the rape and wanted more, in which case that wasn't sufficiently clear to remove my psychic issues with it being forced and/or manipulated.

I can separate my feelings about the sex they were having from what they were supposedly feeling. I would agree that he sexually assaulted her that first time, and she evidently did not enjoy that. But whatever her motivation (or their motivation), their acrobatics were certainly orgasmic for both later on. In the characters eyes, the sex was highly pleasurable. It was an intimacy forged by pleasure in the fiery pits of Mordor, and it clearly clouded her judgment.

I did find some of their scenes erotic. But I felt similarly about The Night Porter, which I think is a superior film.

I also found some of the sex scenes difficult to watch in Lust, Caution because I was convinced they were actually having sex. Even if they weren't, the director went to great lengths to make it appear so, and instead of bringing me further into the story, I found myself distracted. Are they or aren't they? Is he commenting on art versus pornography or is that what I'm bringing to the table? Yup, totally ripped me out of the film.