The Seed of Man (1969) - Marco Ferreri

Ciro and Dora, a young couple, are eating food at a diner when they learn of a plague which has begin to ravage the populace of the world.  The couple heads to the coast where they take refutre in a large home on the beach.  In an effort to pass time the couple turns their house into a museum of sorts where they display cultural relics from the days before the plague.  As time passes Ciro becomes increasingly fixated on his perceived duty to repopulate the planet but faces resistance from Dora, who has no desire to bring a child into a dying world.  When another woman arrives more than willing to procreate with Ciro, Dora takes desperate measures to make sure this doesn't happen.  Marco Ferreri's surreal post-apocalyptic thriller is a challenging piece of filmmaking that is a cynical viewpoint on humanity.  The sci-fi angle is just used as a device, as Marco Ferreri shows the incredible links in which these two characters go through to simply get their way.  These are characters who are supposed to love each other yet Ciro goes through incredible lengths to get what he wants - a child.  The arrival of the other woman and the fght tot he death with Dora captures the dog-eat-dog view which Ferreri has of humanity.  Not that I am an expert by any means but Ferreri's films always seem to be rather ubiquitous in that they are full of metaphors and symbolism but with The Seed of Man I was just left rather unimpressed.  The film just felt meandering with the symbolism being too obvious.  Not that it's a huge critique but The Seed of Man could have also been  much shorter given the end result of its message.  Marco Ferreri's The Seed of Man is certainly a challenging piece of filmmaking and while I appreciate it's cerebral approach, It doesn't seem very deep outside the rather typical cynical viewpoint on humankind's inhumanity.
6.75/10

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