The Loss of Sexual Innocence Review
by Michael Dequina (twotrey AT juno DOT com)June 5th, 1999
_The_Loss_of_Sexual_Innocence_ (R) * (out of ****)
Writer-director Mike Figgis has described _The_Loss_of_Sexual_Innocence_ as his most personal film, and one would be hard-pressed to argue. So personal as to be self-indulgent, so self-indulgent as to make not a single iota of sense to anyone _but_ him, this admittedly captivating but wholly incoherent and utterly baffling experience will likely leave everyone else dumbfounded. That the film has no plot is of little consequence; I actually applaud Figgis for being so boldly experimental, studying his main character, filmmaker Nic (played as an adult by Julian Sands), through key yet completely unrelated episodes throughout his life.
But when one goes for broke, one can often crap out, and that's what Figgis has done here in every sense that expression can be taken. Despite the stunning cinematography of Benoit Delhomme, his interesting idea becomes increasingly less so as the film progresses, for few of the vignettes make any lasting impression. It is telling that the most effective of the episodes has the least to do with Nic and, hence, the entire film: a haunting sequence (eerily scored by Figgis) detailing the chance meeting of now-adult twins (Saffron Burrows) who were separated at birth.
But the individual vignettes' lack of interest is the least of Figgis's problems--his largest is his self-important pretentiousness. In a truly headscratching move, he has Nic's (for lack of a better term) "story" intercut with wordless scenes of Adam (Femi Ogumbanjo) and Eve (Hanne Klintoe) frolicking in the Garden of Eden. (Included is a laughably earnest scene where Adam and Eve watch each other in wonder as they both urinate.) The Nic episodes by themselves don't make any collective impact nor sense, let alone when grouped with the (as billed by the on-screen intertitle) "Scenes of Nature." Appropriately enough, Figgis's artistic fall is best exemplified by his description-defying depiction of the Fall: Adam and Eve are run out of the Garden of Eden by military police, accompanied by the requisite barking hounds; awaiting the couple just outside the gates are swarming paparazzi, who chase them into the night.
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Michael Dequina
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