Just saw
White Lily. This was bad. Like, embarrassingly bad.
Imagine a horny, heterosexual male director trying to do serious lesbian drama. With "artistic" love scenes with flowers. And ridiculously LOUD moaning, from the slightest of touch.
Oh and won't somebody please tell Nakata that combining eros and pottery wheel has been a bad idea since
1991.
Nakata said he was inspired by the way Masaru Konuma did lesbian sex scenes. I'm not sure anyone should be inspired by Konuma. But the reference is spot on. This feels like a modern arthouse drama directed with the finesse of a 70s porno director.
Now, it's not all bad. The last 20 minutes is actually good. Like The Family Game goes Roman Porno. Twisted, biting, darkly humoristic. But it's too late.
Summary:
Aroused by Gymnopedies - 4/5
Wet Woman in the Wind - 3.5/5
Dawn of Felines - 3/5
Antiporno - 4/5
White Lily - 1.5/5
Overall I must say the Roman Porno Reboot project was just about the coolest thing to hit the theatres in years. Nikkatsu did terrific job hyping and branding the hell out of this. The release strategy was perfect as well. Where I live they only gave each film only a one week run, releasing them back to back on 5 consecutive weeks. So for I was going to cinema for 5 weeks in a row to see a new Roman Porno film every week. Something to remember!
Speaking of remembering, although my favourites of the films were Antiporno and Aroused by Gymnopedies, it's Wet Woman in the Wind that I will be remembering best. Nikkatsu totally nailed their attempt at trendy new cinema with that one. I took my girlfriend to see that on my second viewing, just so that 40 years from now we can remember how we went to see Roman Porno in cinema when we were young. She enjoyed it quite a bit as well, and it's totally a film that you can take an open minded girl to see as it's lots of fun for both sexes.