'Eisenstein in Guanajuato' Review: A Russian Director's Sexual Awakening Peter Debruge - Variety
go to original February 18, 2016

Eisenstein In Guanajuato - Official Trailer (Films Boutique)

Set in Mexico during the "10 days that shook" Russia's greatest silent filmmaker, "Eisenstein in Guanajuato" marks Peter Greenaway's raucous attempt to capture his all-time cinema idol at his moment of greatest personal discovery and deepest professional frustration — which, the film takes great delight in suggesting, coincided with the loss of his virginity, at age 33, so far from his (still) homophobic homeland. Determined to breathe fresh life into a medium he insists has scarcely evolved in the 90 years since Sergei Eisenstein made "Strike," Greenaway has wrought an outrageously unconventional and deliriously profane biopic that could take decades to be duly appreciated.

Unspooling like some sort of blasphemous passion play, the film depicts Eisenstein's symbolic death and subsequent resurrection via an act of gay sex. "Somebody has opened the door to a wet and weepy dirty hurricane," the Russian gushes not long after his studly Mexican guide, Palomino Canedo (Luis Alberti), pours olive oil down his backside. It's a scene that makes "Last Tango in Paris" seem tame by comparison.

The wily satirist behind "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" has never shied away from sex or death — the film's two major themes — though this may be Greenaway's most flagrant depiction of the former.

Made by Greenaway at the still-feisty age of 72, this irreverent, yet meticulously researched passion project — arguably the closest to his heart, given his career-long fascination with the dynamic Russian auteur — should catch even cinephiles by surprise. For Eisenstein's homosexuality is seldom mentioned to those who study "Battleship Potemkin" in film school, while the Mexican chapter is but a footnote in his bio, making whatever sexual adventure he experienced there a speculative codicil to said footnote.

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