Tartan Video: Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Starring Kieran O’Brien and Margo Stilley, Released 10-29-03

Finally, Michael Winterbottom has produced the movie I have long dreamed of. One in which there is an authentic story of unfolding drama and sex between a man and a woman who have just met.

In this case, the story is of Matt, a self-assured male who encourages forth a younger and less sexually mature female, Lisa, to experience the power of singularly opening herself to her sexual partner. He provides the model for her to mimic, and for us to follow.

Matt has a very strong unassuming masculine nature and is very comfortable with his own sexuality, even as he bends to Lisa’s egotistical self-absorption.

Whan the alarm goes off the morning after their first encounter. She gets out of bed and tells him she has an appointment, and dresses without so much as the acknowledgement that she has had a night of sex with him. He is evidently already involved. She is cool and detached.

Matt is forever appreciative of Lisa, and gives her his full attention as a sexual partner who understands what his (in this case) role is — that of bringing the female to a level that is parallel to his own arousal. What follows is a sex scene of great involvement portrayed by him with slow, deep, penetrating thrusts designed to arouse her.

They travel for a weekend excursion, playing a game of word association in the car. He says “love.” She says “lust.”

In a beach scene, he strips nude and dives into the freezing surf after she playfully calls him boring. He turns his gorgeous body around thigh deep in the froth of the sea and declares over the sound of the pounding waves, “I love you.” as he spreads his arms outward and opens his heart to her. Botticelli’s Venus rising from the sea was never so erotic.

His voice in narration depicts her as “21, beautiful, egotistical, careless and crazy.” She is all of these. He is an exquisite lover, attuned to every nuance of her state of arousal, forcing her to pay attention to him. He teases her to stay at the edges of her availability, her hands tied, eyes wrapped in black silk, while he displays the epitome of sexual prowess.

They have their typical honeymoon is over — disillusionment spat at morning tea that is too hot, and which he has dosed with sugar, which she doesn’t take. She accuses him of being “booorrring!” and of “not paying attention to me!” She throws a hissy fit, and takes medication for some unexplained reason. Just like real life.

After the storm is over, she tries to mollify him. Clearly, she is uncomfortable with something that is unfolding within her. She comes home with the token Forgive-Me-Gift, wearing a newly bought pair of panties that are tied with a turquoise satin ribbon to turn him on. He showed her just how turned on he was.

There are several more sizzling sex scenes; yet later she tells him she is leaving to return to America, showing her inability to stay and make a commitment to him.

It is only here that the choice of actress does not quite fit, as with Margo Stilley and her British accent, though her performance is extremely believable, she is clearly not American as depicted by the script.

If actor Kiernan O’Brien was not an exquisite lover before this film, he certainly was after the five months of filming. I can certainly appreciate the pressure that he must have experienced to perform on camera!

This film is a cinema breakthrough and provides the benchmark for all those to come after. It portrays an authentic sexual and emotional relationship, depicting sex scenes without the fake, out-to-lunch, vacant faces of the participants, as they appear to fuck each other to death, which is the hallmark with x-rated films.

However, it brings me to wonder about the absence of genuine feelings during the act of sex as is usually shown in modern sex films. Do they truly reflect the usual sexual practices happening in today’s culture?

Certainly, there can be just the act of sex between between two people. However, if that is all that we ever experience, how are we to ever know that there is something far greater available?

There is the act, and then, there is the experience. Both very different from each other. One transcends the other in ways almost indescribable, and in my estimation, achieved either purely by accident, or deliberately with the full conscious attention of both partners.

In the film, transcendent sex is available to Matt. It seems he is aware of this possibility. In a very endearing act of giving, provided by his mature male confidence, he patiently tutors Lisa to bring her to full awareness of her feminine sexuality.

Here is a perfect primer for men to emulate if they wish to experience the role of receiving the best sex they ever dreamed of from a woman.

The Antarctic feature in this movie offers an interesting contrast to the torrid landscape of hot sexual scenes, yet it also provides a metaphor of the ice breaking away from the heart of the Antarctic Continent, the Heart of The Mother: with great tons of opaque chunks crashing down or quietly setting adrift onto the sea of life, into which they finally melt, as in the arms of a lover.

Matt says, “It’s beautiful.” as he looks down upon it from the plane transporting him back to his profession as a scientist there. The movie fittingly ends filming the shadow imprint of the plane as it moves across the landscape of the stark white ice floes.

Throughout the movie, the film inserts nine concerts of rock bands in England that Matt and Lisa attend. In these features, there are literally thousands of people standing in front of a stage with music blaring from very sophisticated sound systems.

One can only hope that we will all take a lesson from the main character of Matt as he so profoundly shows how to be of service and devotion to the feminine sexual nature of a woman.

This woman salutes all those men who already are in tune with that powerful part of themselves as they make exquisite love to the women in their lives.

- mek

 

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marty kleva

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