Here we have three vaguely linked stories about love and sex from a trio of distinguished directors. It's a lip-smacking prospect that has a disappointing outcome, getting worse as it progresses.
The three-star rating is substantially for Wong Kar Wai's The Hand, in which Gong Li appears as an ageing courtesan adored by her tailor (Chang Chen) and at length according him an erotic favour. Shot by Christopher Doyle, it has all the passionate yearning and regret of the notable In the Mood for Love.
In the second story, Steven Soderbergh casts Robert Downey Jr as a patient of Alan Arkin's psychologist in Equilibrium, a lightweight but gently amusing portrait of role reversal that was apparently a lastminute-substitute for a projected episode from Pedro Almodóvar.
It is best to draw a veil over part three, Michelangelo Antonioni's The Dangerous Tread of Things, which has a husband and wife bickering and the husband making off with a halfnaked woman. The veteran director is clearly expressing what was subliminal in masterpieces such as La Notte. But this one looks like nothing more than creaking softcore porn.
Eros
Cert: 15
