Review of The Brown Bunny (2003) by Kenb. — 12 Sep 2005

Neva Chonin of the San Francisco Chronicle has totally missed the point. This film is not about sexual obsession and guilt, it's about loneliness. We feel the pain a young man who has lost his lover (we later find out the details) and who makes lonely trips from one location to the next to race motorbikes.

He interacts with several women along the way - not for sex but to reach out and regain the lost companionship. The final episode with his former sweet-heart explains everything. I enjoyed the film. It really brings home the loneliness a man can experience when traveling alone without love.

The infamous felatio scene at the end of the movie was I believe faked. What man clamps a fist around the base of his penis and never lets go while his lover performs oral sex? Wouldn't most men surrender his organ completely to the woman's attention? I say only a man who is trying to hide the fact that he is wearing a fake penis would keep such a death grip.

And his would not be the first faked penis in films. In "Irreversible," the man who commits the brutal rape in the tunnel turns over and his erect penis is visible temporarily. But in the DVD, the director shows how the scene was originally shot and how a penis was added digitally afterward.

In Breillat's film about shooting a porn film, much ado is made over choosing the right fake penis to wear during the porn scenes.