Movie spotlight
8 ½ Women
After his wife dies, middle-aged businessman Philip Emmenthal, at the prompting of his playboy son Storey, populates his Geneva villa with eight-and-a-half concubines. Three are from Kyoto, where Storey manages Pachinco palaces. Each has a distinctive personality: a nun, a child bearer, a gambler, a student of Kabuki, a horsewoman with a pet pig, a maid. As a year passes, the women begin asserting their own power.
Insights
Plot Summary
A dying billionaire summons his estranged son, Philip, to his remote, opulent resort. Philip discovers his father's secret obsession: a collection of eight and a half women, each embodying a different archetype and living in elaborate themed rooms. As Philip delves into his father's bizarre legacy and the lives of these women, he grapples with his own identity and desires.
Critical Reception
Peter Greenaway's "8½ Women" is a visually striking and thematically complex film that divided critics. Praised for its opulent production design and Greenaway's signature eccentric style, it was also criticized for its opaque narrative and sometimes gratuitous sensuality. Audiences found it to be a challenging and often perplexing art-house film.
What Reviewers Say
Visually stunning with intricate set designs and costumes.
A challenging and often enigmatic narrative that can be difficult to follow.
Explores themes of sexuality, identity, and legacy with a distinctively European art-house sensibility.
Google audience: Audience reviews highlight the film's unique visual aesthetic and ambitious thematic scope, though many found the plot convoluted and the pacing slow. Some appreciated its boldness and artistic vision, while others were left confused by its unconventional storytelling.
Fun Fact
The film was shot entirely on 35mm film with a unique aspect ratio of 1.33:1, which was uncommon for feature films at the time of its release, contributing to its distinct visual presentation.
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