The Hunger - Anaïs
"I am yours. There are no others."
An architect (Nick Mancuso) is visiting Montreal when he goes out for a walk after enduring periods of boredom and restlessness. He encounters a stunning local beauty sitting on a bench, speaks to her, asking about the location of a monument, receiving no response in return. George Rain can't get her off his mind, and his fantasies run wild, colored on canvas, the imagination inventing this amazing woman and her gangster boyfriend. When both become vivid realizations out of recreations, George is visited upon by Anaïs's Guillaume (Pierre Chagnon), sore for how he mistreated her during a previous night's rough sex. He is perplexed by how fantasies, created out of passionate desire and creative energy, are now reality, Guillaume drawing a knife in retaliation. Stabbed and bleeding all over the Montreal sidewalk, George realizes his error. Then this all reveals itself as an artistic creation from the tortured psyche of Anaïs, in reality the young lover of married architect George Rain. He has been cheating on wife, Helen (Rebecca Dewey), and Anaïs has developed a series of portraits featuring events we just watched. George is shocked by how they turn out, especially his demise. Anaïs won't allow his widow to cry.
Mancuso is at his best, I think, when playing George as a rattled and tormented soul, yearning for this young lovely that seems unattainable. That urge to brush aside his feelings of resulting guilt for the possibility of betraying her and Ilona Elkin's inadvertent seductive hold over him are what stood out best to me. Loved the art, too. Especially impressive was how painted, multicolored canvas come alive, bringing to life fantasy. Terrence Stamp kicks the show off waxing philosophical about creation and playing God, finishing up a model building, then following up the story at the end by destroying it. We often destroy what we create. Anaïs has the power to destroy but does say she loves George. Clearly both understand their affair is starting to erode how they feel about each other. Chagnon struggles with the English language but has enough brute about him to make his small amount of screen time count. The giving over to George by Anaïs is supposed to be equal parts kinky and disconcerting, but I really felt very little arousal from it. Elkin's nipple ring gets to be as much a star as her. She's got presence, that's for sure.
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I don't want to leave this write-up without acknowledging Ilona's sensuality. All kidding about the nipple ring aside, when she completely disrobes for George, naked and attune to his command, it stopped me totally. I understood why George was under her spell.
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