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06/24/06
O Fantasma (2000)
25
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:16
Fresh:4
Rotten:12
Average Rating:4.6/10
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Sergio (Ricardo Meneses) is a brooding, lonely man who works as a trash collector in Lisbon by day and roams the city streets by night seeking rough, anonymous sex with men in the city's darkest,... [More]
Starring: Ricardo Meneses, Beatriz Torcato, Andre Barbosa, Eurico Vieira
Director: Joao Pedro Rodrigues
Reviews for O Fantasma
1 - 18 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticThe most audacious, outrageous, sexually explicit, psychologically probing, pure libido film of the year has arrived from Portugal.
11/25/02
It extends the writings of Jean Genet and John Rechy, the films of Fassbinder, perhaps even the nocturnal works of Goya.
05/02/03
This odd, distant Portuguese import more or less borrows from Bad Lieutenant and Les Vampires, and comes up with a kind of art-house gay porn film.
03/24/03
O Fantasma is boldly, confidently orchestrated, aesthetically and sexually, and its impact is deeply and rightly disturbing.
02/13/03
Top CriticImagine (if possible) a Pasolini film without passion or politics, or an Almodovar movie without beauty or humor, and you have some idea of the glum, numb experience of watching O Fantasma.
11/25/02
Top CriticIt's clear that director Rodrigues has a future as a provocateur. But you may want to decide whether to spend an evening being provoked -- and possibly perplexed. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
10/23/03
The film may be provocative, but it's also maddening... In the end, the audience is left with a great big WHY?
10/24/03
First-time director João Pedro Rodrigues' unwillingness to define his hero's background or motivations becomes more and more frustrating as the film goes on.
02/12/03
Although purportedly a study in modern alienation, it’s really little more than a particularly slanted, gay s/m fantasy, enervating and deadeningly drawn-out.
11/26/02
There’s this gay garbageman who roams the city at night in a black rubber catsuit and searches out dangerous anonymous sexual encounters. Would you care to invest?
04/21/04
Despite a couple of memorable scenes, it's boring when it's not kinky.
07/31/03
Like the central figure, the structurelessness of plot and direction, lead directly into obscurity.
07/10/03
The gay audience you'd expect the movie to pander to will likely be dismayed by its depraved view of homosexuality.
09/11/03
While the transgressive trappings (especially the frank sex scenes) ensure that the film is never dull, Rodrigues's beast-within metaphor is ultimately rather silly and overwrought, making the ambiguous ending seem goofy rather than provocative.
11/25/02
Arty gay film.
11/25/02
Often looks like explicit gay pornography thinly disguised as high art.
09/26/03
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06/06/08
Top Critic1 - 18 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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