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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.motss
Subject: Re: Dutch Movies (spoiler)
Message-ID: <1271@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 18-Jan-85 16:01:34 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1271
Posted: Fri Jan 18 16:01:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 04:29:09 EST
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Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
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I really liked THE FOURTH MAN, too.  It's Verhoeven's first big glossy
"commercial success" film, yet I thought it was much more accomplished
than SPETTERS (about Dutch teenagers: a main character goes from fag-
bashing son of sadistic Dutch Reformed Church farm parents to "out"
gay via a bashing & gangbang HE receives in an uncompleted subway
tunnel from his wouldbe victims, one of the weirdest comings-out I
know of).

The film had a lot of misogyny, but didn't really seem sexist (but I'm
not female); there was plenty of gore, though most violence that was
threatened never materialized.  The splicing of hallucinations with
"realistic" segments is as good as I've seen in any film.  By the end
of the movie one's sense of reality is completely subverted.

The COMMENTARY magazine reviewer didn't do justice to the opening
titles shot of the spider & crucifix: it was wicked & effective.

I hope everyone who reads net.religion sees THE 4TH MAN.  Maybe then
they'll BEGIN to have a glimmer of what religion is about.  The sani-
tized public cults that pass for religion(s) in North America are a
far cry from the living core of historical religion, or even from the 
inner reality of religious experience today (something few seem willing 
to own up to).  "Fire & brimstone" is vapid by comparison.

A lot of us probably know people, gay and straight, who in the eccentri-
city of their personal religious practice & belief directly make the
vivid (& valid) connections between (what reviewers still call) "blas-
phemous [sic.] fantasy" & profound religious conviction.  Yet anyone
acquainted with ancient, medieval, & nonwestern religious art knows
how ironic it is to call this association "blasphemy".  It was really
nice seeing it at long last on the screen, fully & publicly acknowledged.  


					Ron Rizzo