The Loss of Sexual Innocence
USA/UK 1998
Reviewed by Charlotte O'Sullivan
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The film follows the experiences of the protagonist Nic at various times in his life. Intercut with this are Adam and Eve's creation, their discovery of sex and banishment from the Garden of Eden.
In 50s Kenya, five-year-old Nic spies a young girl exchanging education for sexual favours. Years later in Newcastle, Nic attends a funeral for his girlfriend Susan's father. At the party afterwards, he catches her kissing another man. Now an adult, Nic travels with his wife and child to a holiday cottage. On the way they argue. We see scenes from Nic's childhood involving a gruesome murder.
Nic's marriage breaks down and he leaves to direct a film in the Sahara. He stops in Rome to meet a beautiful Italian girl whose boyfriend Lucca will be the film's sound recordist. Unbeknown to this girl, she has a twin (they were separated at birth) travelling to Rome on the same plane as Nic. At Rome airport the twins see each other, but are distracted and 'miss' each other. On location, Nic and the Italian twin are attracted to each other; Lucca picks up on this and records the sound of their love-making one night. He plays it back as the group are travelling across the desert. In his jealous rage, Lucca drives over and kills a child. The boy's tribe demand one of the party stay behind while the others go off to get the police. The girl insists on staying. The tribespeople kill her.
Review
Mike Figgis claims to have learned the hard way "that you do yourself no favours by holding onto things that do not belong within the big structure." If that's so, how does one explain his lush art movie The Loss of Sexual Innocence, a film entirely devoid of a big structure?
There are so many faces, so many "things" competing for our attention here, it's hard to feel much about any of them. Far from appearing surreal or jagged, many of the vignettes prove predictable. As soon as we see the protagonist Nic's teen-years girlfriend Susan talking drunkenly to a rakish fellow at her father's funeral party, we guess she's going to grind herself into betrayal. As soon as the female twins parted at birth begin their separate journeys to Rome airport, we know they will meet (if only briefly). Even Nic's and his wife's Dennis Potteresque dreams feel familiar. And we all know exactly where Adam and Eve are headed. The actors are faced with the impossible task of bringing tableaux to life; most seem too self-conscious to make this work. Saffron Burrows has too few lines to break the spell of her beauty. Femi Ogumbanjo (Adam) and Hanne Klintoe (Eve) seem too inexperienced. Trying to convey awe, they look witless.
You don't have to prefer Figgis' more polished efforts (Leaving Las Vegas, One Night Stand) to find all this grating. The Adam and Eve sequences are perhaps the most hackneyed, and when white horses appear, we're really lost. Benoît Delhomme, The Scent of Green Papaya's DP, knows how to make earth come shudderingly to life, but the ideas behind the beautiful images aren't complex enough to hold our attention. What does Figgis add to the creation myth? And what lies beyond Eden makes no sense. The paparazzi (such easy targets) are as one with a brutal police force, but can an obsession with celebrity be so easily equated with fascism?
When in doubt, Figgis throws in humour, but it sits uneasily with the film's somewhat pompous tone. We don't know Nic well enough to know if the asides are meant to be his view of the world. More often than not, they seem to come straight from Figgis, with more than an edge of contempt. Thus the sub-heading "Her father which now art in heaven" appears before a scene in which teenage Nic tries to go all the way with Susan. Similarly, when Nic fondles his unnamed wife in their kitchen, the camera rests on a phallic cucumber. We may not care about these people but that doesn't mean we want to laugh at them. Meanwhile, we are prepared for a number of climaxes. The first, in which the twins meet, is ludicrous. The brassy music builds while a subplot involving a clumsy British businessman reminds us how ridiculous the rest of humanity is. In fact, it's the businessman you warm to.
But the film has a few more crescendoes, and the next one comes off. The moment where Burrows, as the Italian twin, is murdered is astonishingly powerful. Suddenly the cloud of poise and misery hovering over her explodes and for once the sub-heading - "Justice" - comes into its own. Burrows' character stays with the tribespeople because she thinks that a female will defuse the situation. That she gets it so wrong seems a judgement neither on her nor on the tribespeople and is thus genuinely tragic, a question about sexual and racial identity that can't be answered. For this scene alone, The Loss of Sexual Innocence is worth our attention.
Credits
- Producers
- Mike Figgis
- Annie Stewart
- Screenplay
- Mike Figgis
- Director of Photography
- Benoît Delhomme
- Editor
- Matthew Wood
- Production Designers
- Newcastle Crew:
- Jessica Worrall
- Mark Long
- Italian Crew:
- Giorgio Desideri
- Music/Music Producer
- Mike Figgis
- ©The Fred Mullet LP
- Production Companies
- Summit Entertainment in association with Newmarket Capital Group present a Red
- Mullet production
- Executive Producer
- Patrick Wachsberger
- Co-producer
- Barney Reisz
- Production Supervisors
- Italian Crew:
- Andrea Borella
- Tunisian Crew:
- Ridha Turki
- Production Co-ordinators
- Joan Thompson
- Italian Crew:
- Cristina De Rossi
- Tunisian Crew:
- Rita Dhaoui
- Facilities
- Tunisian Crew:
- International Monastir Films
- Production Manager
- Jacquie Glanville
- Location Managers
- Newcastle Crew:
- Christine Llewellyn-Reeve
- Italian Crew:
- Beatrice Arweiler
- Tunisian Crew:
- Brahim Toumi
- Assistant Directors
- James Bradley
- Amanda Blue
- Marc Charach
- Italian Crew:
- Alexis Sweet Cahill
- Paola Barbaglia
- Tunisian Crew:
- Mounir Baaziz
- Script Supervisor
- Ira Hurvitz
- Casting
- Jina Jay
- Newcastle Crew:
- Russell Gow
- 'Her Dream' based on a dream by
- Bienchen Ohly
- Art Directors
- Newcastle Crew:
- Anita Bryan
- Italian Crew:
- Alberto Tosto
- Tunisian Crew:
- Adel Chelbi
- Set Decorator
- Newcastle Crew:
- Julie Harris
- Scenic Artist
- Newcastle Crew:
- Karen Britcliffe
- Costume Designer
- Florence Nicaise
- Costume Supervisor
- Alan Blue
- Make-up
- Designer:
- Katya Thomas
- Tunisian Crew:
- Essia Baaziz
- Titles/Optical & Enlargement
- Cine Image
- Optical Co-ordinator
- Martin Bullard
- Musicians
- Clarinet:
- Tony Coe
- Trumpet:
- Mike Figgis
- Voices:
- Maggie Nicols
- Miriam Stockley
- Music Supervisor
- Dana Sano
- Music Co-ordinator
- Louise Hammar
- Music Producer
- James Mallison
- Music Co-producer
- Mark Tucker
- Soundtrack
- "Piano Sonata in C" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; "Träumerie", "Der Dichter spricht" by Robert Schumann; "Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement" by Ludwig van Beethoven; "Nocturne in E Flat Major, Opus 9, No.2" by Frédéric Chopin; "Nocturne in D Flat Major, Opus 27, No.2" by Frédéric Chopin- all performed by Joanna MacGregor; "Symphony No. 9 'Choral' (Presto 'Ode To Joy')" by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; "Girl Don't Come", "Long Live Love" by Chris Andrews, performed by Sandie Shaw
- Sound
- Pawel Wdowczak
- Re-recording Mixers
- Mike Dowson
- Mark Taylor
- Digital Sound Editors/ Mixers
- Nigel Heath
- Julian Slater
- Film & Video Post-production
- Technical Director:
- Paul Collard
- Soho Images
- Dialogue Editor
- James Feltham
- ADR
- Mixer:
- Edward Colyer
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jean Sheffield
- Lionel Selwyn
- Mixer:
- Mark Taylor
- Location Consultant
- Italian Crew:
- Marta Baliva
- Dog Trainer
- Italian Crew:
- Massimo Perla
- M.P. Dog-Star Srl
- Animal Handler
- Italian Crew:
- Daniel Berquini
- Cast
- Julian Sands
- adult Nic
- Saffron Burrows
- the twins
- Stefano Dionisi
- Lucca
- Kelly MacDonald
- Susan Brown
- Gina McKee
- Susan's mum
- Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
- Nic, aged 16
- Bernard Hill
- Susan's father
- Rossy De Palma
- blind woman
- John Cowey
- Nic, aged 5
- Nina McKay
- mixed-race girl
- Dickson Osa-Omorogbe
- Wangi
- Jock Gibson-Cowl
- old colonial man
- Justin Chadwick
- flash man
- Femi Ogumbanjo
- Adam
- Hanne Klintoe
- Eve
- Johanna Torell
- Nic's wife
- Geraint Ellis
- Nic's son
- George Moktar
- Nic, aged 12
- Mark Long
- 1st detective
- Red Mullet
- [i.e. Mike Figgis]
- 2nd detective
- Joe Cunningham
- policeman
- Wesley Kipling
- Nic's brother, aged 3
- Anthony Cleckener
- James Younger
- Malcolm Holmes
- Jeffrey Coulson
- four boys
- James Bradley
- Nick Figgis
- David Medleycott
- band members
- Mark Long
- man in dream
- Clare Jones
- Zoe Jones
- baby twins
- Marina Ilina
- Fabrizia Farra
- novice nuns
- Roderic Leigh
- boring businessman
- Rachel Boss
- Italian woman
- Bruno Bilotta
- Italian man
- Rodney Charles
- Charlie
- Phil Swinburne
- games teacher
- Cite Chebbia
- blue child
- Neziha Youssef
- blue mother
- Rami Chebbi
- blue father
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 9,521 feet
- 105 minutes 48 seconds
- Dolby digital
- In Colour
- 1.66:1