Why Love by Gaspar Noé is everything but a film about love.
!!! This review is going to be very subjective and non-professional.
In this movie, the parisian film maker said he wanted to show a love story without eluding the sex scenes. I was very excited about it. If you are wondering, I am not a big fan of his work but I admire the fact that he seems to film whatever he wants to film.
I thought I was going to like this one. Reading the plot and some interviews of Gaspar Noé, I was expecting a movie where we could sneak into the intimacy of a couple, sharing the pleasure of two characters in love, being a part of their life through many passionate moments via long and sensual exchanges (verbal or physical).
Before the movie I was like Yeaaaah…
Now I feel like I just watched a movie with flat dialogues between two (or three, or more) people constantly hurting each other and fucking to feel alive. I have to agree with people though: this was not strictly a porno because the sex scenes sometimes were soft and slow and the girls had pubic hair. (No need to say I was happy to watch it alone and not with my mom…) The sex was ok. The rest painful to watch.
In GQ France, Gaspar Noé himself even said he wanted to show a love story but not during the steady stage (wtf?) of real love and trust. More the passion’s fever.
Mon but était de raconter une histoire d’amour. Pas l’état amoureux stable entre deux personnes qui s’aiment et qui sont confiantes. Plutôt la fièvre de la passion.
He just made a point. Why did he have to call his movie Love then? If only he had called his movie Lust… It is indeed a story about desire, destructive passion, lust. They cheat. They lie. They cheat and lie. Of course, they also do drugs and have sex with several people at the same time. Well, a regular couple really. From the very begining, this couple had no chance. Lust without trust -and so without love in my opinion- does not end well. Actually, if this movie was an article on the internet, it could be called “Top 10 Reasons Relationships Fail: Follow Our Instructions To Destroy Your (Love) Life.” (the main and boring character ends up with the wrong woman and an unwanted baby).
…and then I watched it.
I would like to quote R., an awesome friend: “Haddaway used to say in his song what is love, that the baby must not hurt him not hurt him no more. Is that what people strive for nowadays? Is that what love is supposed to be? Lots of sex with bags of walking std and a miserable couple?”
You know what? Maybe the movie shocked because the contents were pretty (very) empty compared to the many sex scenes, not just because of them. Also, I do not like being manipulated: “I am going to show you love and sex = No, you showed me sex and self-destruction.” To the people claiming that this is a movie about love, I am wondering if they are having fantasies about a love/hate relationship because they never truly experienced passion/lust or if that is truly how they see love.
I love trust. I love sex. I love having feelings. I was not moved once. I was not really turned on neither (at least not more than porn). What is left? I guess I did not like Love, The Movie, and I am the first one to be disappointed.
What about you? Your thoughts about the movie?
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