Compiled from a rich tradition of oral history, most Tantric teachers rely on a book known as the Kama Sutra, a manual describing different sexual acts and different positions. Tantra is a Sanskrit word that means expanding, spreading, and manifesting - like a cosmic weave made up of different energies, including thoughts, actions, and all physical matter. In Tantric sex, you learn to prolong the lovemaking so that a perfect and harmonious union can emerge and the act of doing becomes an act of being, a spiritual rather than just a physical experience.
Winner of the Best Picture Award at the 2008 Latin American Film Festival and Best Latin American Film at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival, visionary Argentine director Eliseo Subiela's latest film Don't Look Down attempts to translate the meaning of Tantric sex into cinematic terms. While it is a brave film that has run afoul of the Argentine censors, it is not altogether successful. Eloy (Leandro Stivelman) has become a sleepwalker after the death of his father. Living close to a cemetery and having worked with his parents delivering ornamental statues and monuments for gravesites, Eloy, now 19, has a mystical bent. He can see the spirit of his father passing through his life as well as the dead inhabitants of the nearby cemetery who sit outside its walls.
Trained by his father in the art of walking on stilts, Eloy's day job is to wear a ridiculous sandwich costume and walk the streets of Buenos Aires marketing his sandwiches. When sleepwalking one night, Eloy falls through the window into the bed of a beautiful woman, Elvira (Antonella Costa). He soon finds out that both Elvira and her mother Celia (Maria Elena Ruaz) are spiritual teachers. Ana reads auras and Elvira is an expert on tantric sex and the Kama Sutra. Through spending his afternoons with Elvira, Eloy discovers the confluence of sexuality and mysticism and, in his goal of thrusting 81 times without ejaculation, finds that he can travel out of his body, manifesting in Venice, Paris, and Barcelona among other destinations.
All good things must end, however and when Elvira, who been visiting in Beunos Aires, tells Eloy that she must return to Barcelona, he finds it very difficult to let go - literally and figuratively. Don't Look Down, in spite of its being almost an instructional manual in how not to reach an orgasm, is not very erotic or even that interesting as cinema. We never really get to know what the characters are thinking or feeling and it is difficult to relate to them as more than teacher and pupil. The material, however, is very instructive. I can't guarantee that when you reach 60 thrusts you will materialize elsewhere but this is one exercise you can definitely try at home.
Winner of the Best Picture Award at the 2008 Latin American Film Festival and Best Latin American Film at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival, visionary Argentine director Eliseo Subiela's latest film Don't Look Down attempts to translate the meaning of Tantric sex into cinematic terms. While it is a brave film that has run afoul of the Argentine censors, it is not altogether successful. Eloy (Leandro Stivelman) has become a sleepwalker after the death of his father. Living close to a cemetery and having worked with his parents delivering ornamental statues and monuments for gravesites, Eloy, now 19, has a mystical bent. He can see the spirit of his father passing through his life as well as the dead inhabitants of the nearby cemetery who sit outside its walls.
Trained by his father in the art of walking on stilts, Eloy's day job is to wear a ridiculous sandwich costume and walk the streets of Buenos Aires marketing his sandwiches. When sleepwalking one night, Eloy falls through the window into the bed of a beautiful woman, Elvira (Antonella Costa). He soon finds out that both Elvira and her mother Celia (Maria Elena Ruaz) are spiritual teachers. Ana reads auras and Elvira is an expert on tantric sex and the Kama Sutra. Through spending his afternoons with Elvira, Eloy discovers the confluence of sexuality and mysticism and, in his goal of thrusting 81 times without ejaculation, finds that he can travel out of his body, manifesting in Venice, Paris, and Barcelona among other destinations.
All good things must end, however and when Elvira, who been visiting in Beunos Aires, tells Eloy that she must return to Barcelona, he finds it very difficult to let go - literally and figuratively. Don't Look Down, in spite of its being almost an instructional manual in how not to reach an orgasm, is not very erotic or even that interesting as cinema. We never really get to know what the characters are thinking or feeling and it is difficult to relate to them as more than teacher and pupil. The material, however, is very instructive. I can't guarantee that when you reach 60 thrusts you will materialize elsewhere but this is one exercise you can definitely try at home.