Thank you for your analysis and sharing your personal experience, I really enjoyed your videos :) you captured so well some of the knottiness of class in Britain, and validated the frustration I felt with this film - for its apparent lack of interest in really exploring these ideas!

Part 2 of this video essay can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2fUiZShftKfrJI&lc=UgyEeIA7S6lyotnfDv54AaABAg&ab_channel=Ganymedia 💃

Part 1 of this video essay can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3TGZnybiM6shcU&ab_channel=Ganymedia 🌱

Thanks for this insightful review!

I absolutely loved it. For me, it was the best film of the year. I've loved Emma since Easy A and I find Yorgos bafflingly fascinating. I truly don't get the outrage or the discomfort. It's quite tame really. But it's not a Marvel movie, that's for sure.

It's too long, too in love with itself, and everything that can be wrong with cinema.

Women ☕️

One film cannot possibly explore and correct all wrongs of patriarchy. It’s kind of an unfair critique to ask it to do so. From start to finish it is surreal with impossible mad science. We are already in and out of the real world watching this creation navigate the oddity of existence and processing that as a clean slate. The consent question is one of those that would have been tough to pull off in a couple hours. How far down the rabbit hole would we have to go to pull that thread given that we are already in a situation that is impossible. To that I think about my own sexual awakening as a child. I remember being a young boy who felt for the first time that it felt really good down there. In this most impossible of scenarios if I had, had an attractive adult male body that other people desired in a world clearly without stis I would have also probably engaged in vigorous bouncing as often as possible. Obviously there are moral questions in the real world about whether a child brain with an adult body can consent but the film is exploring what one might do if they were living this and I don’t see this as an unreasonable way one might process this. Would it be morally correct in the real world, of course not, but also this is clearly a surreal world with a different philosophical question being asked. The movie would have just been over as we left her locked up to protect her from herself, in a bit of time forced her to be married and rolled the credits. Through the sex in many scenarios she learns about herself and does begin to become aware of what boundaries she might like and formulates a framework for healthy relationships. As one would if in this situation. Like not wanting men to be smelly or to just put it in, or not be controlled or abused. I think that the film evokes a sense of discomfort in the viewer when watching a woman explore her sexuality. I when leaving the theater overheard a group of women talking about this discomfort. They had an almost love hate with the movie. The people I talked to seemed to think that it was inappropriate for this to be a theme where we in this society we do not approve of women being sexual. Yet everyone always concedes that women being sexual is not bad yet we are uncomfortable actually seeing it on screen. We still very much believe in the idea that women are best as non sexual beings or whores. They cannot be nuanced humans who have experiences and find their own way, it’s uncomfortable for us regardless of the reality that we all are just people and everyone has this experience with in themselves. Our culture tells us that being sexual is not moral. This film is asking if we didn’t have this framework would we behave the same? I think we would not and I empathize with the character. Like I said I could imagine if I was living this impossible scenario what I would do. They, as all of us really only think about the sex. There is also important moments of a blank slate going from stabbing a corpse mercilessly and being completely selfish to a being that sees unfairness in the world and feeling empathy. In the conclusion she is now using her abilities to help. This is not a film meant to solve everything in feminism but to think of an impossible situation where a being comes in to self awareness. The fact that she has sex as a big part of this journey is uncomfortable and intriguing for us in this culture. That is why they had so much of it. To have the viewer both uncomfortable and compelled so we the viewer are left thinking about our own weird surreal ride through our existence and culture.

The film is a somewhat direct adaptation. The basic plot and hyper-focus on her nymphomania are from it.

You failed to mention that it's a film based on a Glaswegian novel by Alisdair Gray published in 1992. So a lot of your comments and issues raised (very important) were not in the horizon then. And it's a period novel.

Regarding video title, whether Poor Things is feminist or degrading, it’s neither. Shocking for a neoliberal consciousness, thankfully there are some movies which are not trying to shove “the message” down our throats. This film is about development of human consciousness (not necessarily female one), taboo biological topics and critical social commentary. Maybe the title is just a clickbait geared towards general audiences heavily conditioned to think only in binary terms, but Poor Things definitely doesn’t fit that mold. - - - - Now that I listened to first 5 minutes of this puritanical, capitalist-feminist take, the title sadly wasn’t just a clickbait, but what this “poor thing” really thinks.

Yeesh, this uptight broad is killing my buzz!

I finally got around to watching "Poor Things" and also listened to your commentary on it. Reflecting on both the movie and your analysis, the take away for me , among other things, about how achieving one’s desires often hinges on leveraging what one possesses, be it talent, a platform, $$$ , or even the controversial topics that the director chose to explore.

Y'all do yourself a favor and skip this movie. Go watch The Anatomy of the Fall or The Zone of Interest if you want to see good film art.

I watched the movie just because I like Rosamund Pike. Mostly in the first part I felt stressed, the style, the tone/use of music and the camera-work , made my brain shut down a little bit. I was relieved after they entered Saltburn because then everything cooled down, until the scene with Oliver‘s parents and afterwards the party. I was so distracted by this „attack“ on my brain, I don’t think I really had the energy to think more critical about the most parts of the movie. It came over me like a stream. I can only remember the „events“ that disturbed me. Farley‘s part made me more critically think while watching. The rest was just there, no real plot twists just a reveal that makes my eyes roll while thinking about it. I also wanted Farley to be more present, like his struggles were overlooked, Oliver literally harassed him, this got treated like a throw away gag, with no reaction on Farley‘s side. The hypocrisy of his family members were barely acknowledged. Only one argument with Felix happens if I recall correctly . The moment he got send away, erased him from the narrative like he didn’t matter in it at all. Just here to make us believe that there was a deep exploration on the „traditional“ problems in the upperclass. As my final addition I put this shortened version of my opinion’s points „ A package that I could barely look at with nothing in it , because the only interesting thing was underused and then got thrown in the rubbish, before I could grab it“

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the book where revelations towards the end seem to acknowledge the male fantasy that the main story was, and whether this salvages it for you (i tend to think it does). A lot of critics have said this was a major omission from the film.

I took it for entertainment value and found it....Very entertaining.

Were women in the 1960s and beyond conned by being convinced that empowerment equals promiscuity?

The movie was like the Green knight. Lots of praise, fake positive reviews, but the movie was garbage and quickly forgotten. Typical self indulgent bullshit coming out of Hollywood.

So interesting. I didn’t really feel like it focused on sex from the male perspective but rather through Bella’s lens and how she even grew out of the first primitive instinct of physical pleasure to wanting more and seeking other kinds of stimulation. I didn’t view it as her becoming a woman just because she had sex but rather a more primitive part of us as we develop and how children especially in puberty years experiment with their bodies and then exploring a more pragmatic approach to sex work and how it fit into what she wanted to experience.

This critic is an example of using an ideological lense (in this case feminism) and then be surprised that the film does not fit the lense. A wordy but hollow review that says absolutely nothing about the movie. There is no reason one should think that a movie needs to be feminist just because it has a woman as the main actor. There are so many topics of an almost philosophical nature that speak to the human nature, nature versus nurture, lust and sex, anarchical freedom versus cultural norms. Now the view on human beings is not exactly flattering, and one can agree or disagree. But please try at least to understand what the director has intended to say before you elaborate on what you expect the movie to be.

For the record, yes the director was to blame for the hypersexual content. It existed in the book, but it wasn’t so glorified.

Sex IS the best expression of true love but very few understand or know this because no one know whst love is let alone true love. A successful relationship requires a love ethic as bell hooks describes and defines it in her beautiful book, "all about love".

Emily Stone owns this film as a main producer. The sex is not "explicit". Go watch pornography for explicit sex@

Ruffalo's character is NOT a "womanizer" ir "Casanova". He's only involved with Bella, no one else. You should find out anout Casanova also because he loved women and sympathised with them. Ruffalo's character us merely a cad full of narcissism and common insecurity cum jealousy.

If I only liked movies with great politics I wouldn’t like anything

Beautiful, and fantastic film!! Loved it!

I watched saltburn because of everyone hyping it up. It was very disappointing. The plot twist were predictable and it also seemed like they were just added for shock factor and not actually added to build a story? Watching the movie I was rather exhausted than shocked, because of how every "mind blowing" scene just felt so forced. Great video btw! <3

Thanks for this video essay for pointing out so many interesting topics that Saltburn could have focused on. I regret watching Saltburn, but would love to watch a spin-off (or in writing) directed by you! Also, 19:13 got me laughing for 2 minutes 😂 your ending remarks are always so witty and funny!

no one is free feminism is important for us to become slaves to the system we created equally so we can all realize the fucked up spot we are in and figure sth out

it only showed sex for the first half after that it starts to become more intelectual and she never becomes chased tf did you see the movie she became a prostitute... what trops bro i just wanna talk to you just to show you where you are wrong we are all bodies its more philosophical than that its a body horror not just for woman but in general sorry it didnt hammer it in

Very good and interesting comments. I couldn't pinpoint my gripes with the film, but i also felt a huge decline in the second and even more the third act. I first blamed it on maybe missing the point or it being to weird. Your points however really made me aware of some things i felt while watching, but wasn't quite getting then.

This is exactly how I felt after watching the movie, I also think it was pretty obvious that Oliver was the one doing the killing all along, but the film really tried to hide it somehow.

this film was awful the outfits were beautiful...

After watching the movie i had to check out the writers other movies and i found “the great” on the writers list of work ( not the book writer ) and if you have watched the great u know how this guy masks woman objectification and over sexualization as “feminism”. People like that are hurting the real feminism. Honesty the plot of the movie was awful, so much talent and movie production wasted on this god awful and extremely badly executed plot

I'm not sure you've understood what Poor Things is about. It's a sophisticated film with nuanced political messages and as such can be difficult to understand. I found that this helps kzbin.info/www/bejne/iWrGaIedm5mqo68si=4QQDw4V0yK3f-qH2

Thank you for this

the film is an incel fever dream. it's presented as such in it's source material

I asked myself: OK, the film deals with a woman's freedom and sexuality... what about real, lovely intimicy and what about mestruation and living in a patriarchal working world in which no consideration is given to abdominal pain? Does Bella not have mestruation? Or was it simply not taken into account by a male director that a woman (who was once pregnant) that is passionately discovering herself, should somehow also discover that blood are bubbling out of her vagina; that she has menstrual symptoms, like swelling breasts, abdominal pain, mood swings... what the hell is wrong with her hormones and why don't we get anything of them to see in this movie - except a malegaze-like hunger for sex?! As a woman who strongly identifies with both, her sexuality/intimicy and her cycle, I find that very unfeminist about the film. As a tantric woman that I am, I can say for myself: hundreds of loveless one-night stands have not given me the inner awakening that loving intimacy with myself and with a sexual partners, male or female could give me. The film shows us all kinds of things, but no intimacy that enables truly loving, self-empowering awakening and no woman whose growth is influenced by her natural female cycle. And in the end I find it almost a little glorifying of surgery and perhaps even the female section. Where Bella, who once had her baby cut out of her stomach in the operation room, realizes that she never feels as safe as she does here. It's easy to believe that her husband from her old life wasn't lying when he said, that - when she was Viktoria - she hated her baby and called it the monster. We're obviously dealing with a woman who doesn't particularly value her feminine-physics-realitiy and her opportunity to create new life. She prefers to do such things at the operating table, like her father "God" and creat a men with goat Brain.... What is, if I think about it twice is realy fun! Even if it's not my definition of feminism. I just like to be a cyclical, motherly feminist who prefers love and intimacy; and prefers a balance between work and motherhood, to work my ass of in a male-dominated profession and fucking around to feel impowerd as a woman.

She doesn't possess a childs mind when voraciously exploring her sexuality. Her growth in intellectual terms is that of a teenager, hence, her heightened libido. At the end, she's fully grown - body and brain in symbiosis. Look at how quickly her hair grows, as Max observes at the beginning. The Victorians were fascinated by anatomical possibilities - this was the time of the Burke and Hare murders in Edinburgh. That's why it's framed through her body, IMO.

Please keep making videos. Maintain this quality and your followers will show up.

This movie sucked... I was looking for deeper meaning... and it just came off as some low budget porno, with excuses to show people doing it, and or talking about doing it.... was waiting for movie to get beyond this stage of her life.. but it seemed like HER WHOLE LIFE was focused on it.

Movie seemed to be a feminazi fever dream. Doink all the men you want and then wise up and settle down for a "practical marriage". And Bella literally laughs at the guy who says he loves her and is willing to marry her after being a literal whore. I like that she is warned that in time no one will want her for free by the owner of the brothel... but that is overlooked.

First I have to say that the plot summary and description was very misleading. This movie was very disturbing. I watched it on Hulu last night. I actually fixed a plate of food right when it came on. I was not able to eat my food. Due to all the disturbing imagery. Like the cutting up of brains, and poking scissors into people's eye balls and etc. Couldn't really figure out what was going on with Emma Stone in the beginning. Didn't know if she was supposed to be a retard or some kind of experiment. But it didn't look like she was having fun in the beginning. It was very weird. I definitely ended up throwing my plate of food away. ............................................... This is what I was expecting from the description. I thought it was going to be some kind of time travel thing. Maybe she dies during slavery times. Comes back to life and lives for centuries. And she lives through different times and racism in America. Maybe she spends her new life trying to help Black people fight racism and even the rights of Gay and Lesbian people also. That is kind of like what I thought I was going to see. ............................................................... I did watch the entire film. It was so strange and different, that I had to keep watching. It was weird and disturbing and uncomfortable. But it still was interesting. You can't say the film was not interesting. However, it is not a movie that I will watch a second time. I never laughed during the entire film. I know the writers and whoever meant for certain parts to be funny. I cracked a smile a few times. But nothing really made me laugh. The disturbing parts kind of just sucked all the humor out of everything. One thing, that kept me watching till the end was all the nudity and sex scenes. I am a guy. So she was willing to take her clothes off. And often in this film. So that kept me watching too. And also, I know the actress. She's a child star. I was watching movies with her (Emma Stone) since when I was a kid. I seen a lot of her child work. This may have been the first time I seen her as an adult. So that made it interesting too. But very misleading description. I have just subj8scribed to your channel. So congrats, you just gained another one. I am an advocate on this platform for engaging with others and supporting one another. And returning love and reciprocating feedback. I think that kind of community on here is what we need. If there were more people like me, you might have an extra 500 fans and friends to your channel; right now. Extra. I truly am being sincere when I write that. I have looked at your content. You have been seen. And getting seen is half the battle. Let me win half the battle too. Let me know that you see me. Who knows you might even like one of videos there.

Thank you so much for this!! I felt pretty much the same things about this film, but couldn't quite put it into words so precisely.

One thing that leaves me thinking is that we don’t know the sex of the baby whose brain replaced that of the mother. Would your views differ if the brain was of a different gender? Would you expect the brain to have a gender?

I, a big film enthusiast and actress just came from the movies and these are my first thoughts: I left it with no feeling at all, more so, I was relieved when it ended because the last third of the movie I got really bored because I understood that the film was not going to give me any big surprises anymore, and I was right. I saw the trailer and the good critics a few months ago but somehow never was called to watch the movie, it didn't catch me at all. Tonight though I was scrolling through the movie theatre program and stumbled on it again and thought I'd give it a shot, I thought, there must be something about it since it got two Oscars. The idea sounds interesting but from the first minute I already knew that this was going to be banal. The biggest surprise was to me the hypersexuality in this film that I didn't like. I didn't expect it at all, I thought it was going to be about the explorations of life's beauty and misery with a naive childlike mind. Turns out by this movie, there is not much more in life besides sex. I feel sorry for those for whom this is true. The comedy was, besides the dinner scene in Lissabon, awkward and very simple, too. All in all a shallow movie in shiny disguise. I definitely don't feel empowered by this movie. There are many movies that do it better. It's unfortunately a movie I could have skipped and I wouldn't have missed anything.

As a man I thought the film was rather boring, with the themes telegraphed from very early on and either muddled in their execution or else simply perverse. Critical of the men in the story who try to control Bella and prey upon her naivety and sexual curiosity, the male director and writer do exactly the same thing, exposing her for the audience’s enjoyment. Bella pursues sex without shame, which could be read as empowering, and the comedy seems to centre on the power of Bella’s uninhibited nature. But in the broader context of the film’s themes and production I am sceptical as well. To me, it felt like a male fantasy of an uninhibited woman who attempts to escape control and yet is ultimately controlled by the unseen male forces behind the camera. She is never liberated regardless of what takes place in the story. On top of all that, the story itself was dull as dishwater. If not for the visual creativity of the sets, costumes, music and some of the stylised performances, it would have been an utterly forgettable film.

Did she even get married in the end? She obviously kept in contact with her lover from the bruthel. Also she clearly states that her marriage with max is more of a practical move than a move based on love or romanticism. Also aren’t we all just prisoners in lives and bodies that were apointed to us by our parents? And she event states to God that she forgives him for lying because she finds it amusing to be alive. She decides to accept things rather than being imprisoned by them.

You say that you wish the explored bella’s humanity more deeply. You also complain about the hyperfixation with sex in the fiom. But sex is a deeply human thing, sex is integral to a human being wether male or female or trans or straight or gay or asexual. Sex is an integral part of how humana interact with the world, other humans and themselves.