Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo 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 References: <205@usl.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 34 Xref: watmath net.movies:5484 net.motss:1432 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