"Sexual desire is unwilled, but it has a literal life — any given desire is born, lives, evolves, ages, changes, dies," Sallie Tisdale has observed. In this episodic and audacious film, writer and director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) explores the twists and turns of sexual desire in the life of Nic (Julian Sands), a British film director born in South Africa. Four erotically charged moments from different stages of his life are set alongside scenes from the Garden of Eden with Adam (Femi Ogumbanjo) and Eve (Hanne Klintoe).
We are challenged to see sex as a game, a weapon, a trance, a temptation, and a passport to pleasure. Nic's intercourse with his wife (Johanna Torrel) and an affair with an Italian woman (Saffron Burrows) on a shoot in Tunisia reveal that for this tormented man, sex remains a thorn in the flesh rather than a means of intimacy. The exquisite cinematography of Benoit Delhomme and the beguiling musical soundtrack composed and recorded by Mike Figgis register more strongly on the senses than Nic's unfulfilling sexual odyssey.