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Let me suggest that the story is about 2 points of view, his and hers. He the classic zenophobic, socially inept wannabe lover looking out his door and letting his imagination run to fantasy. And so we see the "joining" of male and female. And here we make a 2 story leap, its a metaphoric joining as well to pass along a message to us the viewer, that the 2 gender halves of society needs to come out and join itself, discover itself, and become one. As Nature intended one can ask, as the portrayed environment certainly seems the natural environment we find ourselves in these days both in its physicalities and its spiritual desires, a black and white simplicity, akin to the 2 genders themselves. But all of this is the first part, which is HIS imagination of what he'd like to do, the second part, is HER vision from the same starting point as the first. She totally rejects his look out the mail drop hole (one has to wonder if that's a visual pun). In total its a disparaging comment on the female entity for refusing to see past the first half of the male, the side that society is allowed to see. It begs the question though, we don't get to see the second half of the male, so what is the second half of the male then that makes this story worth telling? One could allude from the macabre tearing of the body in two (she by the way entirely intact, new meaning to the trite, cliche', aged statement that woman is incomplete without the male (another visual pun?)), that this is a new development in the male's life, and perhaps the torn away section isn't allowed in this black and white society, so the male is torn in two, and has had to get rid of the unacceptable half to become acceptable, but its a pathetic result. And one could even make the literal tongue-in-cheek reach that the scene where the male hand grabs the female breast, that the entire movie could be a gender bender statement that its time for men to get a grip on their female sides, in order to become whole, less monstrous-like, less torn in two creatures. The film thus brings a triple poignancy to its storyline and end product. While it made me think, I didn't think about it long, its old social dialogue that was controversial in the 1960s but is now merely social additive and preservative. Well shot though and technically fun for its cover-up use of the composited overlay staples, strewn meat and blacked out areas to acheive a joined-together bi-partisan humanoid. A very co-operative effort, nicely finished product. But we are all adults here eventually anyway so can't we please get on with the discovery of everything and becoming all knowing and generously philosophical and uniformly rich, and tolerant, and totally cool...loving. Why don't you all come on over for lunch? And if you can't make that, let's have dinner and a movie. I'll get out the board game of Life(another pun of my own?), the yellow brick road is over there.

- February 13, 2008Socially trite, cliche', 1960s concerns fodder...