DREARY `8 1/2 WOMEN' MAKES EVEN SEX BORING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Anyone who found ``Eyes Wide Shut'' to be a little too warm and erotic for their tastes would do well to check out Peter Greenaway's latest exercise in tedium, ``8 1/2 Women.'' A dry meditation on sexual fantasies, ego and, yes, Fellini, this movie is such a cold dish that it makes Kubrick's last movie look like a bawdy trip through Amsterdam's red-light district.

Greenaway's films have always been studies in structure, symbols and formalism, making up for what they lack in humor with an overabundance of elitist malarkey. Still, in the case of, say, ``The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,'' Greenaway's obsessions can be diverting and his visual presentation can be strikingly inventive. But there's little in ``8 1/2 Women'' that rises above the banal; Greenaway seems largely to be trying to see just how much time he can spend either talking about or showing male genitalia. (Answer: a lot.)

The movie follows a self-absorbed businessman, Philip Emmenthal (John Standing) and his equally shallow son, Storey (Matthew Delamere). When Philip's wife dies, Storey goads his father on a voyage of sexual self-discovery. This comes after Philip's rather strange way of coping with his grief (``You've never slept with a corpse, I take it?'' he asks Storey) and an episode of father-son incest, something that seems to fascinate Greenaway simply because there isn't a word in the English language for it.

After watching Fellini's ``8 1/2,'' the Emmenthals ponder the nature of cinema. ``Do all directors make films to satisfy their sexual fantasies?'' Philip asks. If you're Greenaway, it's a rhetorical question, and he soon has father and son collecting a mansion full of libidinous playthings, women that run the gamut of sexual fantasy figures. There's a sexually talented, gold-hearted whore (Polly Walker), a nun (Toni Collette), a subservient housekeeper (Barbara Sarafian), a passive Japanese porcelain doll (Kirina Mano) and an earth mother who grooves on being perpetually pregnant (Natacha Amal).

And lest Greenaway be accused of mellowing, he also includes a paraplegic (Amanda Plummer) who enjoys an intimate relationship with a pig and a mysterious legless woman, Giulietta (Manna Fujiwara, playing a character seemingly named after Fellini's wife, an odd homage indeed).

Philip muses that ``most films are about what people haven't got - sex and money - and we have them both,'' but it's obvious that this happiness will be short-lived and that the Emmenthals will receive their comeuppance. But what passes for female empowerment in Greenaway's misogynistic world is really just male self-pity, dressed up in pseudo-intellectual claptrap. As the friendly prostitute says, ``Men love women, women love children, and children love hamsters.''

And if you find deep meaning in that, you certainly won't agree when Philip admits to Storey that ``all this narcissism is rather boring.'' But for Greenaway, it's less a self-conscious confession than a mission statement, as much a badge of honor as all the genitalia he keeps purposelessly waving in the audience's face.

The facts

--The film: ``8 1/2 Women'' (R; strong sexuality, nudity, language).

--The stars: Polly Walker, Amanda Plummer, Toni Collette, Vivian Wu, John Standing, Matthew Delamere.

--Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Released by Lions Gate Films.

--Running time: Two hours.

--Playing: Laemmle's Pasadena Playhouse 7; Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood

--Our rating: One star.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Polly Walker and Matthew Delamere are two of the participants in the debauchery of ``8 1/2 Women.''