The Erotic Man ( Det erotiske menneske ) ( O erotikos andras )

The Erotic Man (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Det erotiske menneske
Alternate Title: O erotikos andras
Language Selections:
Danish ( Subtitles )
English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )
English ( Subtitles )
Finnish ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )
Norwegian ( Subtitles )
Portuguese ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )
Swedish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Denmark ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
86 min + 11 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.85:1)

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 2010 and produced in:
Denmark ( Scandinavia, Iceland )

Directed By:
Jørgen Leth

Written By:
Jørgen Leth

Actors:
Jørgen Leth ..... Himself

Synopsis:

Jørgen Leth is a 73-year-old Danish documentary filmmaker who embarks on a personal search for the meaning of the word "erotic." Is it a concept that can be measured, contextualized and defined? What starts off as a more general examination of a universal question becomes increasingly personal as the film shifts focus from "the erotic man" to Leth's own erotic past. The inspiration for his quest is the relationship he had 10 years earlier with the 17-year-old Haitian girl Dorothie. The director intercuts this process with reenacted scenes from his love life. Large numbers of beautiful young actresses lie naked on hotel beds and are examined by the camera - in Haiti as well as Senegal, Brazil, the Philippines and Panama. Leth evidently sees a close relationship between the erotic and the exotic. Sometimes the women do nothing, sometimes they read aloud poetry written by the director, and sometimes he reads it himself. We also see how these scenes came to be made, in casting sessions during which Leth sees something special in each of the girls. With its loose structure, the repeated use of split screens and a multiplicity of formats, the film does not have a narrative as such. As Leth himself explains, it is all about the journey and "finding moments, from recollection and in the present."

One of modern Danish cinema's pioneers, Jorgen Leth has been making films since the late 1950s. The breadth of his work has been staggering, ranging from portrait films (usually focusing on artists like dancer Peter Martens or jazz great Bud Powell) to impressionistic, poetic notebooks on China, Haiti and the USA to suspenseful accounts of sporting events (including the Tour de France). But he's best known for absurdist glimpses of contemporary life in Denmark, most notably The Perfect Human, which served as the spark for his collaboration with Lars von Trier, the widely celebrated The Five Obstructions. (Needless to say, he has had an enormous influence on the current crop of Danish filmmakers.) Still nothing he's done in the past to quite prepare anyone for the idiosyncratic and unique pleasures of The Erotic Human, in some ways his most radical and personal work, a powerful and sometimes shockingly honest essay about eros, aging and loss. The premise is deceptively simple. Leth travels to several countries (the locations include Haiti, the Philippines, Senegal, Brazil, Argentina, Panama) to cast one particular scene: a woman, usually naked, is sitting in a hotel room, lamenting the loss of her lover who has returned to Europe. But, with each new reenactment of the scene, one begins to questions its veracity. It's a forlorn fantasy - a man's need to re-experience a scene he could only ever have imagined, at best. (There are echoes of Alain Resnais's early 1960s classics, Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad.) These scenes are set against footage of Leth alone in hotel rooms, ruminating on the pitfalls and nature of his project; hilarious discussions of the casting sessions with his colleagues (he refuses to turn anyone down); highly aestheticized nude studies of female bodies; and, in one memorable moment, a boat trip up the Amazon. The juxtaposition of age with youth and beauty creates an overly fecund atmosphere where fertility connotes decay ala Keats' 'To Autumn'. (The film's palpable sense of resignation is heightened and made more painful by Leth's own complicated outsider status in most of the areas he visits, a situation the film is aware of but never directly addresses.) What emerges is an elegy for lost possibilities and a paean to sensuality and the female form - and possibly the most upfront and searing look at sexuality you will see in a long while.

Danish master Jørgen Leth travels the globe in this sensual, provocative and sometimes autobiographical essay film about a man searching … searching the world for the nature of the erotic.

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 10 January, 2012.

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