Eros (film)

Eros

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Wong Kar-wai
Steven Soderbergh
Michelangelo Antonioni
Produced by Stéphane Tchalgadjieff
Domenico Procacci
Jacky Pang Yee Wah
Jacques Bar
Raphael Berdugo
Written by Wong Kar-wai
Steven Soderbergh
Michelangelo Antonioni
Starring Gong Li
Alan Arkin
Robert Downey Jr.
Cinematography Christopher Doyle
(segment "The Hand")
Marco Pontecorvo
(segment "Il filo pericoloso delle cose")
Steven Soderbergh
(segment "Equilibrium") (as Peter Andrews)
Distributed by Warner Independent Pictures (USA)
Artificial Eye (UK)
Release dates
  • 10 September 2004 (Venice)
  • 3 December 2004 (Italy)
  • 8 April 2005 (USA)
  • 12 May 2005 (Hong Kong)
Running time
 104 minutes
Country Hong Kong
United States
Italy
Language Mandarin, English, Italian
Box office $1,535,829[1]

Eros is a 2004 Italian drama film consisting of three short segments directed by Wong Kar-wai ("The Hand"), Steven Soderbergh ("Equilibrium"), and Michelangelo Antonioni ("The Dangerous Thread of Things"). Each of the three segments addresses the themes of love and sex.[2]

Cast

"The Hand"

"Equilibrium"

"The Dangerous Thread of Things"

Production

According to Wong Kar-wai, the original combination of directors was Michelangelo Antonioni, Pedro Almodóvar and him. But Pedro Almodóvar quit the project due to his tight schedule and he eventually used his story to make Bad Education.

When released in Hong Kong and North America, Wong Kar-wai's "The Hand" was shown first. When shown elsewhere, Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Dangerous Thread of Things" was shown first. The film was censored for sexual content in the People's Republic of China.

Reception

Critical response

In North America, critical response for Eros was very mixed.[4] American critics were almost unanimous in their praise of Wong Kar-wai's segment, and almost unanimous in their disapproval of the Michelangelo Antonioni piece. Steven Soderbergh's contribution drew mixed notices.

Roger Ebert gave Wong's segment four stars (out of a possible four), Soderbergh's three stars, and Antonioni's a mere one star. On the syndicated television show Ebert & Roeper, he gave the film a "thumbs up" rating. In his Chicago Sun-Times review, he wrote:

Are the three films in Eros intended to be (a) erotic, (b) about eroticism or (c) both? The directors respond in three different ways. Wong Kar-wai chooses (c), Steven Soderbergh chooses (b) and Michelangelo Antonioni, alas, arrives at None of the Above...The Antonioni film is an embarrassment. Regina Nemni acts all of her scenes wearing a perfectly transparent blouse for no other reason, I am afraid, than so we can see her breasts. Luisa Ranieri acts mostly in the nude. The result is soft-core porn of the most banal variety, and when the second woman begins to gambol on the beach one yearns for Russ Meyer to come to the rescue. When you see a woman gamboling in the nude in a Meyer film, you stay gamboled with...I return to Wong Kar-wai's "The Hand." It stays with me. The characters expand in my memory and imagination. I feel empathy for both of them: Miss Hua, sadly accepting the fading of her beauty, the disappearance of her clients, the loss of her health, and Mr. Zhang, who will always be in her thrall. "I became a tailor because of you," he says. It is the greatest compliment it is within his power to give, and she knows it. Knows it, and is touched by it as none of the countless words of her countless clients have ever, could ever, touch her.[5]

Box office

Eros was distributed for theatrical release in North America by Warner Independent on April 8, 2005. Promotion was poor; for example, on Ebert & Roeper, critic Richard Roeper remarked that he was surprised that Warner Independent did not send any clips to be broadcast on the show and that this was the only movie reviewed on the show he remembered for which the studio had taken such a step (incidentally, the critics gave the film a "Two Thumbs Up" rating). Opening on twelve screens, box office was weak, earning just US $53,666 ($4,472 per screen) in its opening weekend on its way to a low US $188,392 final gross.

Boxofficemojo.com reports that the total worldwide gross for Eros is $1,535,829.

References

  1. ↑ "Eros (2005)". BoxOfficeMojo.com. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
  2. ↑ "Eros". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  3. ↑ "Full cast and crew for Eros". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  4. ↑ Eros obtained, for example, a 34% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
  5. ↑ "Eros". Chicago Sun-Times.

External links