I've never read the novel on which this movie is based but I bet it's miles better than its visual rendition. The fact that I'm the first to comment here could help to understand how many people have seen it: a few, I guess, including me!. The main problem of this movie can be easily resumed by this expression: 'there's less than meets the eye'. We have a college of female orphans raised in strict discipline apparently for the sole purpose of dancing and be one day chosen by a not better defined 'prince' as the 'star of the ballet' and gain his 'particular attention'. They ignore everything about their real origins and live almost segregated from outer world. As the coming of age approaches the idyllic mood vanishes and some of the girls start wonder about their condition and found what should not be found: their headmistress is a psycho capable of horrible things, even kill, to preserve the secret that lies behind the existence of the college itself. The absurd thing is that we never know what the secret is! But there are plenty of such incongruences throughout the whole story... The direction fails, in my opinion, to follow a precise line and what we see is a lot of rudimentary sub-plots not sufficiently developed. A story about a 'sentimental education' seen from a lesbian side turns into something darker and Gothic over a badly defined environment we hardly recognize as Austria, early 20th century. Don't waste your time with this title: highly NOT recommended.
Review of The Fine Art of Love: Mine Ha-Ha
