Film Reviews by HPB

I watch films from all over the world and from different eras. This is one of the most frustrating films I've seen (and I'm not against French New Wave etc). It seems pointless to me, and the film within a film is badly acted. The two lead women are engaging, but they have to have so many pointless conversations. I'd avoid it. If you want mystery go for Bergman.

I'm male, and have see many films from Cinema paradiso, but rarely write reviews. So why do one for "Romance"?

First, I should explain I have no problem with sexually expicit films generally, but the sexuality needs to be integral to the story, as for example in The English Patient and Birdsong.

This is a film called Romance that hasn't a shred of romance in it. Also there's nothing that I'd call a story. It concerns a woman who has some form of neurosis related to sex. But her mental condition isn't explored or explained in any way. The film concerns only one thing: how the men who enter her life dominate her, mostly sexually. It is an unpalatable portayal of mysogeny. None of them express what most people would call love. They just act out their own sexual eccentricities or fantasies, subjecting her to what seems intolerably humiliating. The film makes no attempt to identify any reason why she would tolerate them (she's clearly not forced to by her economic circumstances). The whole film seems to me to be a dream world for the sort of men who imagine it's acceptable to contol a woman in a way that is degrading for her if not for them.

I'm aware that censorship is a tricky issue, but I have serious doubts as to whether Cinema Paradiso should have it on its list. The question for CP is whether this film crosses the line into low grade pornography. To my mind the fact that the director is a woman makes the whole thing even more incomprehensible.

I love films from many countries, including China, Korea, Japan etc. But this one left me so depressed after half an hour I decided to quit. There's only so much gloom and degradation one can take in the present state of the world.

Very disappointing. We loved this version of Little Dorrit when it first appeared. But now it seems rather dated and not very convincingly staged (we've all been spoilt by computerised cities!). Also, the disc we received was poor, so the dialogue was hard to hear and no subtitles were available. So now we'll try the later Tom Courtney version available on dvd.