carnalknowledge2.jpg

Not too get too heavy, but I’ve seen problems of sex addiction screw more people up than drug abuse. It’s a topic that is rarely discussed. (It’s also why I like the movie Auto Focus.)

Anyway, when I first saw Carnal Knowledge in college I saw it as a condemnation of men. Now I realize that the women are not victims in this movie – they are willing accomplices in this tragedy, just less demonstrative.

It’s a bleak, dark picture – and might very well be the best thing Jules Feiffer or Mike Nichols have ever done. Nichols is at his most cinematically experimental. You hardly notice that the movie is almost a play, set in rooms and over telephones with minimal cast.