I haven't seen this all the way through so perhaps I cannot judge the film just yet, however there is a reason to why I haven't seen it all the way through...
I understand this movie has an 18 rating, but I was put off by the amount of raunch there was in it. Somehow I fail to beleive folk from the 1700s spoke about orgasms and erections with such openess - wasn't sexuality something more delicate and private back then? Furthermore WHY do so many film makers nowadays feel the need to inject their films - especially period dramas - with so much sex? And its not simply the image of two lovers embracing or waking up in one anothers arms anymore oh no - its full-on hardcore porno right infront of your eyes!
Are these film makers out to tell a story, or are they simply just trying to turn themselves on? Do we as an audience need to see two people *beep* right before our eyes? What is the point??
I really wanted to get to know the character of Farinelli through the film, I wanted to know his story which I imagined was tragic and glamourous and about Opera and his relationship with his brother etc. How can I get to know him when every five seconds hes nuts-deep in some sleazy orgasm?
Whoops - I forgot, he has no testicles...
Visually the film is alluring, but its not enough anymore that period films are optically lavish, pumped full of porno-movie style sex and devoid of any emotion or story.
Farinelli - however visually lush it is - comes across to me as a 'showgirl movie' - especially whenever Farinelli is wearing that casino-de-paris style feathery headdress.
Someone please tell me whats up with film-making nowadays, is it just that this centurie's society is OBSESSED with sex??
European art house films tend to look at sex differently. It's not all just sexual perversion and fetish images that directors want to explore. A lot of the times there is a symbolic nature to nudity and sex itself. Let me ask you...didn't you notice something strange about the sex scene in the film? Didn't it seem a bit off to you? Nothing Hollywood would produce certainly...
It's funny you say that, but there is only one sex scene in this movie. I'll admit it's a bit graphic, but there was something symbolic and relevant about it to the film. The "graphic" element is there for a reason, imo. I'll name a few things:
1. It symbolizes Farinelli's sexuality or lack of sexuality rather. He cannot have an orgasm and he certainly can't cum and impregnate a woman. Castrato were seen as "safe" by upper class aristocratic women. Many of them used castrato singers for their own amusement. How much pleasure a castrato received from sex isn't really known, some may have had more of an ability depending on how old they were when they were castrated. A boy who was castrated at age 16, may have more of a libido than a boy castrated at 7. Most of them were castrated between the ages of 7-13, Farinelli was about 11 or 12 when he was castrated. Either way...being a castrato was like being half of a person, sexually, physically, emotionally. You weren't considered a man or a woman by many, you weren't allowed to be married by the Catholic church.
2. Farinelli wants to be a person like everyone else, he wants to be a normal man. Notice how the scene downplays the actor's masculinity and emphasizes Enrico Lo Verso's (Riccardo's) masculine features? His brother "humanizes" him at the end of the film by giving his wife a child. So the tag team sex scenes symbolize this, and sets up the ending for us. Otherwise...it wouldn't make sense plot wise or from an emotion perspective.
3. It's symbolic of the stranglehold his brother has over him. He is his brother's puppet. His brother created him and controls him in every aspect of his life, even his sex life. His brother does it out of guilt and does it because he doesn't know how to survive without his brother as his muse. Even in sex, the most basic, private, human experience, he is the ever present puppet master. The scene where he speaks for his brother to Handel emphasizes this as well.
4. It's symbolic of Farinelli's loneliness and emptiness. If you watch the scene, you will see something in Farinelli's eyes. A distinct lack of interest and pleasure from sex. He's nothing but a sexual oddity and fetish for the young woman, but he really doesn't get anything from it. The scene where Countess Mauer tries to proposition Farinelli for sexual favors and he blatantly refuses in disgust shows that he is fed up of the facade.
Farinelli suffered from inexplicable loneliness in real life and does so in the film as well. He can't get married, he can't have children, he derives little pleasure from sex itself. That rules out having a sexual relationship for his own pleasure with a partner or lover. It would mostly be for the sake of the other partner. So what can he have out of life? He loves music, but he is lonely and nothing can stifle this.
5. Finally, Riccardo could have settled down long ago, but what he really wants is the musical genius his brother possesses. Farinelli and Riccardo share a duel relationship with each other, or rather a parasitic relationship I should say. This is only broken at the end when Riccardo gives his brother his only child and rides off to find musical inspiration.
There are many elements to perceive sexuality in this film. Europeans don't seem to perceive sexuality and nudity in the one dimensional way that Americans do. We see sex scenes and nudity as purely sexual in nature, (meant to arose all sorts of perversions) regardless of whether or not they have a symbolic nature (which American films rarely do). In Farinelli, the structure of the sex scenes suggest that there is something else going on, that there is a subtext. Otherwise it wouldn't be there...that's just my experience with European cinema.
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