В центре мира (V tsentre mira)

2001 film by Wayne Wang

The Center of the World is a 2001 American drama film directed by Wayne Wang and shot on digital video. It stars Peter Sarsgaard as a dot com millionaire who hires a drummer/stripper (Molly Parker) to stay with him in Las Vegas for three days for US$10,000. The film was screened out of competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

A couple checks into a hotel suite in Las Vegas. Flashbacks show that he's a computer whiz on the verge of becoming a dot com millionaire. She's a lap dancer at a club. He's depressed, withdrawing from work, missing meetings with investors. He wants a connection, so he offers her $10,000 to spend three nights with him in Vegas. She accepts with conditions: four hours per night of erotic play, and no penetration. During the days in Vegas, they get to know each other, have fun, and meet a friend of hers, casino dealer Jerri. After the first night, things get complicated. When the three days are over, the stripper makes it clear that she was only there for the money and that the man she spent the time with was just a client. Upset that his feelings aren't reciprocated, he rapes her; she makes no attempt to stop him. She then masturbates for him, achieving orgasm, saying "you want to see real? I'll show you real." The next day he returns home heartbroken. The movie ends with his return to the strip club to see the woman he fell in love with again. She greets him fondly but interacts with him the way she had when they first met: as a stripper and a client ordering a lap dance. Because the film is shown in a non linear format, it is left to the viewer to interpret the ending. One could believe that the film ends with the meeting at the strip club and a chance for the two characters to have a real relationship together, or one could believe that the strip club meeting occurred earlier in time and the film ends with the characters going their separate ways in life.

In January 2000, Wayne Wang announced plans to direct The Center of the World for Artisan Entertainment. Wang said he "wanted to make a really erotic film about sex and love, that could be like ‘The Last Tango in Paris’ for a younger generation. I wanted to do a movie about this young generation of guys who are dealing with the Internet, software and day trading; this whole new world out there where they’re making shitloads of money fast, and not knowing what their lives are about yet besides that money and easy pleasures." Wang drew inspiration from Nan Goldin's photography when envisioning the look of the film. Internet executive Jason Calacanis appeared in and acted as an advisor for the film.

The Center of the World was given a limited release in the U. S. on April 20, 2001. It was released without a rating from the MPAA as the filmmakers did not want to edit the film's graphic scenes of nudity and sexuality, which includes both female and male full frontal nudity.

A Cincinnati theater owner attracted media attention after allegedly ordering a member of his staff to edit a five second scene from the film a day before its release. According to Cincinnati CityBeat, Esquire Theater owner Gary Goldman instructed his theater manager and projectionist to cut the scene in which a female stripper (portrayed by adult film actress Alisha Klass) inserts a lollipop into her vagina. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has an average weighted score of 44 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Critics compared The Center of the World to films like Last Tango in Paris and 9½ Weeks. He wrote, "If you understand who the characters are and what they're supposed to represent, the performances are right on the money. Flo is not supposed to be a sexy tart, and Richard is not supposed to be a lustful client. They're sides of the same coin and very much alike."