Treasure hunting among cinema's lonelier ruins can be some of the most fun in the world, but sometimes alas there's little there but hallucinatory light from the crypt, the bones are all dust and the relics just second rate craft cheaply daubed. So it is with Feminine Carnivores, which looks like it should be great but really isn't. The set up is inviting, a lady named Eve travels to an exclusive women's resort to resolve nebulous psychosexual disorders, but finds that things there are somewhat stranger than expected. And for a while its a pleasing watch, plenty of attractive women, chic location, stylish interiors with modernist paintings and objets d'art (I especially liked the mantis doorknob) yet realistically comfortable, plenty of camera whirls and zooms and a bit of surreal choppy editing, loose plotting that yet steadily advances the atmosphere and idea. But around halfway in things pall as it becomes clear that the film actually doesn't have anything smart to offer and is really just coasting. It seems like a feminist picture celebrating women in control, but by the by turns out to be no more than an idiots take on radical feminism. The men are variously arrogant, crude, shallow or just cracked pawns like a retarded gardener or a policeman who just wants to build card castles. But the women are really no better, just vicious, crooked and deadly. And while said gardener is called Adam, the film goes nowhere with the expected symbolism. No real suspense because things are obvious from the title on and both the characters and their interactions are all more or less one dimensional, but worse the film lacks either genuine radical feminist ire or (for the most part) the comically hypocritical sleaze and violence to be an entertaining conservative denouncement.
On the plus side a group bra burning is somewhat amusing, of course only attractive young ladies bare their breasts, and the camera smartly conveys from very early on the cyclical nature of both the narrative and the characters. It also works as a kind of time capsule, amber freeze of the angst, pretension and style of certain kinds of European artiste of its unfortunately not entirely lost era. An unintentionally positive thing, its dated nature showing up how ludicrous is the persistence of some of its attitude into the modern age.
Others are more generous to this than I, but after mulling it over I'm sticking with really not being a fan. For those that have to see it (you know who you are) it's still better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick, but otherwise avoid.
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