A critical failure upon release, The Loss of Sexual Innocence by underrated auteur director Mike Figgis is a film that might not exist. It’s the celluloid equivalent to a tree falling in the woods. It’s far easier to disparage something than admit you don’t understand it. [That psychiatrists call such behavior ‘projection’ is an irony not lost on me.]
But what if a movie isn’t necessarily meant to be understood, or, more specifically, not meant to be understood within the paradigm of traditional narrative filmmaking? I mean, of course a movie that’s oddly structured, confoundingly abstruse, and willfully inarticulate is going to be difficult to understand on traditional terms. Mentioning a supposed lack of critical understanding above is in no way a sleight to the critics. Proof of concept rarely comes in such a brilliantly untethered manner.
For what it’s worth, this has to be a difficult movie to apprise as a critic. Many of the criticisms it received (“Consciously arty,” “Willfully opaque,” “Gold-plated navel gazing,” “Dumbfoundingly pretentious”) are largely accurate. Mike Figgis works at the periphery of commercial film. He is a director unafraid of experimentation, and nothing fascinates him more than the act of storytelling, or, more specifically, the methodical action of storytelling.
In his films, the manifestation of this fascination can be painfully overt, as in a later Figgis film with a title either brilliantly simple or embarrassingly on-the-nose. Time Code, shot simultaneously on 4 cameras with the output of each occupying a quadrant of the movie screen during viewing, unfolds in real time without the use of editing (at least, in the traditional sense. In a way, the four separate perspectives and what each is charged with capturing constitute an editorial format for the film). If Figgis is still actively making films today (which, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be the case), I can only imagine the prospect of 360 degree cameras has him positively frothy.
Time Code is an intriguing experiment in filmmaking, but a notably less intriguing commercial film. Mr. Figgis being Figgis, what’s being said here matters less than the way it’s being said. The story of Time Code is simplistic and soapy, perhaps both traits being necessary for any film that bombards your attention with four simultaneous narrative strings. Set in one Hollywood (conceptually, as opposed to geographically) building populated by studio execs, A-list stars, and a cadre of agents and managers who all can’t help but mix business and pleasure, we witness deals being made and negotiations turning personal. Oh, and there are earthquakes. Earthquakes and aftershocks punctuate the film, sending all four quadrants of screen shaking simultaneously, an unnecessary exclamation point on style when any amount of punctuation is egregious.
Despite consideration in how it might improve Time Code, a stronger narrative could very well work against this experiment. Still, by pairing his most conventional story with a most unconventional filmmaking approach, Figgis satisfied his curiosity and little else. Some may argue Time Code is more experimental than commercial, which makes me profoundly hopeful for a forthcoming experimental film starring Jeanne Trippelhorn as a Scotch-swilling film executive cheating on her wife with a male subordinate.
Time Code’s experimentation with the methodical action of storytelling defined everything about the movie to an extent that was off-putting. Fortunately, Mr. Figgis is a filmmaker whose work may be most clearly defined by its stylistic differences rather than similarities. No other auteur comes remotely close to his near universal lack of a stylistic thumbprint. Seeing Time Code and The Loss of Sexual Innocence back-to-back, you’d be forgiven for questioning whether both films are the work of the same man.
In the case of The Loss of Sexual Innocence, Figgis remains resolutely experimental in narrative methodology, but runs the opposite direction, embracing the symbolic time-splitting of traditional film editing to a woozy degree. This film very much does not run in real time. It also eschews most aspects of traditional narrative filmmaking altogether.
That there’s not a story in the traditional sense doesn’t make The Loss of Sexual Innocence any less fascinated by the way it tells it. Here, the methodology takes a very different tact, embracing storytelling as a conveyor of textural mood and semi-universal truths rather than as a concrete description of events and experiences.
One minute, we’re witnessing the sad but immutable disintegration of a marriage. The next, we’re watching the inimitable Saffron Burrows (playing two characters; are they twins?) hurrying through a crowded airport when her eyes briefly meet the eyes of a woman who looks exactly like her. The brief moment is pure devastation, and she’s brought back to reality by commotion around her, a lonely tear tracing the curve of her cheek while she scans the crowd in vain for her doppelgänger.
Suddenly, we find ourselves in The Garden of Eden where we witness Adam and Eve first meet. There’s a distinct lack of fear and apprehension, and they approach this nude stranger with childlike wonder and joy. With their sexual innocence still fully intact, the pair inspects their corporeal similarities and differences artlessly. It would be disingenuous to overlook the fact that Mr. Figgis cast a white female to play Eve and a black male to play Adam. While that casting choice is impossible to miss, it remains unclear what Figgis suggests by it, if anything at all. And depending on your point of view, therein lies the source of this film’s incredible strength or overwhelming weakness. The motivations of the filmmaker remain either frustratingly opaque or refreshingly unclear.
Beyond the many aspersions cast its way relating to being too “arty,” there’s not much for a critic of more standard fare to hang a hat on. Like any art, the experience is informed as much by the viewer and their subjective baggage as it is by the content itself. In other words, your opinion of this film depends a whole lot on your personal experience and related expectations. If you want to see a film that has a beginning, middle, and end, and whose pieces all neatly relate to each other, and that telegraphs in which emotion you should be feeling at the moment, I’d say avoid this one.
Mike Figgis asks a lot of his audiences, more than I think he even realizes. His obsession with the methodology of storytelling often manifests in ways that feel like they’re actively pushing a viewer away, discouraging identification or connection with what’s on screen, and actively prohibiting the viewer from the “suspension of disbelief” through which we enjoy traditional narratives.
Figgis’ work in many ways reminds me of another director of “difficult” films who nevertheless receives more accolades despite not hewing to convention: David Lynch. The Loss of Sexual Innocence is Figgis at his most Lynchian.
Mr. Lynch often talks about his work as a painter first and filmmaker second, and how he’s more concerned with relating the ephemeral qualities of how something feels than concretely relating exactly what he means. Figgis embraces something similar here, and painterly qualities like suggestiveness, evasion of meaning, obfuscation of intent, and, indeed, everything that makes the arty criticisms valid, result in a film that asks a lot more of its viewers than they may be used to.
Whether that makes it a “successful” film is almost irrelevant. The Loss of Sexual Innocence’s success hinges almost completely on a viewers’ ability or inability to see it on unfamiliar terms. Some viewers will find it trite, while others will be possessed by its imagery, seeing their story unfold on screen.
I’ll simply say that in working in such a manner, Figgis has made a movie that I find beautiful, deeply haunting, and both broadly evocative and singularly provocative. To me, it’s art.
