Watch The Loss of Sexual Innocence For Free

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Absolutely the worst movie.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It isn't often that one happens upon a movie as contemptible as Mike Figgis' "The Loss of Sexual Innocence". Mike Figgis has always been a pretentious and overreaching director and screenwriter. His past successes have largely been due to excellent source material and some genuine talent with regards to his technical ability as a director. When these items were combined with truly excellent performances, such as Cage and Shue in "Leaving Las Vegas", Figgis' has managed to produce a legitimately good movie. None of the above is true for "TLoSI".First off, Mike Figgis might think his life is interesting, and perhaps it is, but his own telling of his sex life is dreadfully boring. At least he certainly makes it out to be that way. Sex is almost always a great topic for a movie (even when you show absolutely nothing graphic) because it is such an integral component of the human condition. And yet, in this movie, with all its handsome players, it's mind numbingly dull and extremely anti-erotic.I think possibly the biggest problem that plagues this movie is Figgis' own inability to identify or empathize with other people. This is noticeable in his writing and direction in other movies, but in those cases it appears intentional and provided an unflinching look at disturbing subject matter. This movie actually seems to shed some distressing light on his earlier work as it appears that his detached style of storytelling is, in fact, a flaw. In scene after scene, we treated to imagery that is supposed to evoke emotional understanding, yet the scenes are comprised simply of clichéd approximations of legitimately provoking imagery. It is not unlike watching a sociopath feign remorse or guilt; they might say all the right things and perform all the right actions, but it still comes across hollow and insincere.Now, take all the above and combine it with editing that is full of self aggrandizing nonsense. Soaring music lingers over a minute of watching an Alitalia jet on approach. A series of ridiculous Adam & Eve sequences that culminates in one of the few unintentionally hilarious moments where there is actual filmed urination and, in just one of a hundred disjointed scenes, a totally untalented Julian Sands spewing standard Hollywood token eco-nonsense. And yet, none of what I have written can convey just how awful this movie really is; avoid it at all costs.

Mike Figgis is an innovative director. This film was made before his other, more daring movie, "Timecode" in which he worked with a split screen in which the action could be seen happening at all times in all four sections. This film is also full of symbolism that will elude viewers. We don't think the director wanted to lose, no pun intended, the audience. The action in this film is seen through the eyes of Nic at different stages of his life. As the movie opens, he appears in the form of a child Nic and he makes another visit at the end of the movie, perhaps to watch our reaction. The child has intelligent eyes; he appears to be looking at our soul, or perhaps he is telling us this was his own story. The film that doesn't follow a linear narrative. Mr. Figgis composed the incidental music. He also includes well known piano pieces from composers like Beethoven and Chopin that plays well with the images on the screen. The real coup of the director was to employ Benoit Delhomme as the cinematographer of this droll story that follows Vic from childhood. Mr. Delhomme photographs the natural locations with such care that it might prove a distraction for the viewer.Some interesting actors were engaged to give life to this sophisticated look about the loss of innocence. This is a sensual movie that relies on the openness in which the director wanted to show. Julian Sands is Vic, the young boy of the story, now an adult and a film director. Saffron Burrows is seen in a double role; she is a ravishing woman! Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Vic as a young man. Kelly MacDonald is seen as Susan. Hanne Klintoe and Femi Ogumbanjo are seen as Adam and Eve as they are placed on the garden of eden and when they are thrown out from it after having taste the forbidden fruit. John Cowey is Vic as a child in a non speaking but highly effective part. Rosie DePalma, a Spanish actress with an amazing face, is seen as a blind woman in a riveting scene.Like it or not, Mike Figgis is not a director to dismiss easily because he is an original.

THE LOSS OF SEXUAL INNOCENCE has some great parts and some bad parts. Nonetheless, a huge undertaking by Mike Figgis as he tries to connect Adam and Eve to violence and loss of culture and to almost every aspect of modern civilization. * * * The first part of the film is dazzling. A gorgeous boy runs through the fields of Northern Africa and encounters a magnificent sight. The super 16mm looks tremendous, the images enchanting, and the tone powerful. Unfortunately, Figgis starts to weave various narratives with unsuccessful title cards (though I loved the music playing during the Kelly McDonald segment) and our point of view becomes jumbled. As a result, beautifully filmed sex scenes are lost within a haze of overplayed classical music, redundant dream sequences, and pretentious portrayals of man's origin. However, the (SPOILER!) conclusion where the woman gets stabbed the natives is dramatic as it gets. * * *I have to say that although this film isn't a great watch, Mike Figgis is one of the most talented working filmmakers I've seen in a while.

Spoilers herein.Thank god for Mike Figgis. There are more clever directors, and others more intelligent. But no one quite as obsessed with the structure of the narrative as visual music. Some of his other experiments play with folding in other ways; here we get an adventure in parallel narratives at different levels of abstraction.Some reach toward the archetypical, others toward the personal, all very much like `Singing Detective' which it resembles in several ways. Nothing in it struck me solidly until the surprise at the end where Adam and Eve exit the garden to paparazzi and news cameras.Endings are always problematic for experiments where the form is not well established, because so much depends on what we expect. This ending saved the whole project for me. Rugged. Completely transformed all that went before.That's because he treats the whole thing until that point as music: starting with a pure theme, embellishing with variations in several parallel threads, then abruptly shifting from musical noodling to cinematic plunge. That plunge of us INTO the film at long last is his (and his archetypes) exit OUT OF the film into the unkind space that surrounds music.Some films are structured this way, where the entire film is merely preparation, setup, for the end. I know of none other that uses music as the distraction while doing this.Ted's evaluation: 3 of 3 – Worth watching.