Sexual Meditation: Room with View
Sexual Meditation: Room with View, is a 1971 experimental film directed by Stan Brakhage. Shot on 16 mm film, the film explores the often blurry nature of gender roles in the copulatory ritual. Sexual Meditation introduces the viewer to two distinct characters, a male and female, although many have postulated that the female is simply an illusionary impression of the male's apparent sexual frustration.
Plot synopsis
A naked woman is seen sitting on a chair in a room with view. The woman is seen from various angles both in proximity to the camera itself and lying near the open window with her rear exposed towards the audience. This leads the audience to wonder whether the title implies that said view is what lies through the window or is in fact the unclothed woman herself. At this point, a naked man is seen on the same chair as at the opening squatting up and down suggestive of a tantric sex position. His conspicuous distinctness from the female character is evocative of the sexual incompleteness characteristic of Brakhage and his contemporaries. Next, the woman is seen again engaging in a bout of quick pirouettes signifying the lightness with which her gender approaches the mating game. At the climax of the film (and perhaps the implied sexual congress itself), the man repeatedly leaps both from the chair and towards the mattress with the intention of conquering the female. The audience is left with the impression that the man never achieves his desired goal and, like the viewer, is condemned to experience his fantasy as a mere view from afar.