Aesthetic and evanescent, 8 1/2 out of 10

Rating: 8/10 (27 August 1999)

This picture brings interesting ideas, is beautifully filmed, with aesthetism and almost mannerism for some scenes. It does not give all the answers, which I really like, and leaves space for some fantasy, which is what the film is really about.
The story does not want to be true nor event realistic. Journey in the mind of a man: one night he sees and witnesses different things, the morning after it seems that the photographs of all the places and situations have turned negative and reveal an new reality.
The idea of death dominates the whole film, love, sex and jealousy are perceived as ways to be reassured that we are not dead. This is his obsession. You can see it because he seems to keep passive, just watching what is happening. At the beginning, he comes close to seeing Amanda (the party girl) dying, then he is called because one of his patient is dead, whose daughter seems to obsessively desire him. He gives up with the idea of having sex with Domino (the street prostitute) and the day after he finds out she was HIV positive. He meets again Amanda, at the morgue this time.
I personally think that close to the end, when he finds his wife asleep close to the mask he was wearing on his pillow, he pictures the representation of his own death, and this is what makes him cry, nothing else.
Obsessive score,but it has to be, they are obsessive ideas. Some scenes are a too long, but it is worth seeing a second time to pick more subtleties I presume.
This film does not show any splattered blood, dismembered nor disembowelled body, no brain material, no murder, no violence, no situation that could trigger first degree nightmare, sex only between consenting adults. In other words, lots of space for censure. Still, in our society that tolerates depiction of 1001 different ways of killing someone, the noise and fuss made about one or two representations of ways of making love and maybe creating life is understandable.
Understandable, maybe, sensible, certainly not.