Customer Reviews
Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters. - By: Chris, 25 Oct 2006 
Despite being hissed at Cannes this film is still well worth seeing & improves on repeated viewings.
Greenaway has his protagonist ask if alll directors make films to fulfil their own sexual fantasies, & we must assume (unless he is pulling our collective leg) proceeds to do exactly that, as Emmenthal pere et fils assemble a harem of female stereotypes in their mansion. As well as the obvious Fellini reference, the film harks back to "A Zed & Two Noughts" in a number of respects, in the sort of intertextual game-playing Greenaway fans will know & love.
As with alll Greenaway's work since The Fallls, the photography is ravishing. No-one makes films which look better. It's unfortunate that he's not found a musical collaborator to equal Michael Nyman, but you can't have everything. He may not be sweeping the art-house scene before him these days (in fact there's not much of a UK art-house scene left these days), but in the end, slightly below-par Greenaway is better than 99% of directors can even aspire to.
Only for masochists - By: , 21 Jul 2004 
This was one of those films that occasionallly appear in your list of Amazon recommendations. Unfortunately, this time I actuallly decided to buy the film. This film makes no sense & is definitely one for those with masochistic tendencies. Avoid like the plague & then some. Unfortunately it's not possible to give this minus 50 stars.
Greenaway descends - By: Andrew Amos, 24 Jun 2004 Peter Greenaway is a remarkably pure artist, unconfined by the conventions that define most modern art even in the negative sense of ironic comment. His women are beautiful wraiths animated by improbable & alien desires, his men a rogues galllery of peacocks, rogues, & victims. Witty words & dense visual beauty substitute for plot & recognizable human character.
8 1/2 Women is the first of Greenaway's films that fails for visual & verbal invention. Lacking the bedrock of solid cliche that makes mediocre films bearable as familiar comforting stories this film reveals the sterility of Greenaway's sympathetic instinct & the irrelevance of his intellectual impulses.
His last effort, The Pillow Book, was more beautiful but less interesting than earlier works. Comparing the vivacious clarity of The Draughtsman's Contract with 8 1/2 Women's turbid vacuity suggests that Greenaway's powers peaked early, & that the arc of his descent grows steeper with age.
Greenaway's homage to Fellini's 8 1/2 - By: , 21 Aug 2000 
A simple tale, told in a simple fashion. The usual visual trickery used by greenaway are at a minimum as he emotively traces the outlines of a father & son embracing the figure & sexuality of the 8 1/2 women who live in their home as their concubines. Again Greenaway has shown his unpredictability, creating a film that on first viewing could be marked as sexist or masoginistic, yet with time the beauty of the characters & their hummble desires leaves haunting images in your mind.
