Day 190: Love (September,15)

There's a point when the main character and voice-over narrator on Love says that he never sees a movie presenting "emotional sexuality". Sex, semen and blood, that's what people would like to see. Murphy is a filmmaker, or so he says. Actually, I think he is just a puppet to Gaspar Noé intents in this too stereotyped film that had the big ambition to be innovative.

Love has been creating some noisy around the world, and has been like that since its premiere during Cannes. Explicit sex and love scenes on 3D, that is how the movie has been known mostly. Despite the bad reviews, I thought it would be at least interesting. It wasn't, at all.

Before the first scene, there's a sign announcing the moment to put the 3D glasses on. And so the terrible nonsense begins. At the very begin I've already realized this movie is just noisy. The sex is explicit and so, so boring, that I was begging to the characters to finish their business as soon as possible.  

What was announced as innovative, is just a bunch of cliches put together. It is filmmaking in its worse. Gaspar Noe thinks he knows so much, and that he is above the other mere mortals. His condescending arrogance is staggering, actually. I imagine him thinking: this world is so mediocre, full of prude hypocrites,  I'll show them how it's done and make a movie about excruciating love and sex. So he started to write it and finally realized it wouldn't be so easy. To talk about life, and love, and sex it is necessary to be really alive, and not just criticizing the other's ways from outside. Unable to write a true love sexy story, he decided then to check every box that came to his mind relating to sex: explicit scenes, close on dicks, threesome, sex clubs, homosexual sex, trannies, public sex and so on. As if a close on a ejaculating dick would be the quintessence of a revolutionary speech. There's a bunch of unrelated scenes, as if the awful voice-over could succeed in giving them some meaning. 

An example: at one scene, the couple are lying on bed after sex, and from nothing, the guy asks the girl about her biggest fantasy. Sexual? she replies. Of course, he says. And she tells him how that she would like have sex with him and a third woman, a blond with blue eyes. The next day or so, they are getting their mail when they meet the new neighbour: a sixteen blue eyed blond that are living next door. After the badly filmed threesome, the guy says: thanks for Europe! (a place where eh would have a three way sex with a minor). Did you get the image? So.

Gaspar Noé, by his main character, affirms that there's not sexual love stories on the screen. I think he never saw any of Bernardo Bertolucci's movies. Or the Spanish/French production Sex and Lucía, a beautiful story about love with stunning and heartfelt sex scenes (Paz Vega is incredible). Or even Betty Blue, for everybody's sake. Sorry the rage, but it is inevitable. Noé should look better around him, or, even better,  he should head to the DVD section on a store and just see how wrong he is. 

I've read how the acting here is terrible, and it is a fact. The actors are not even able to walk naturally (it is so staged that hurts), let alone show deep feelings or have real sex. And despite what has been said, I don't think it is difficult to find good actors that would accept to be a part of this project if it was a good one. At least his protagonist should have been more endearing - even if I'm not sure that it would have saved this doomed story anyway. Because the problem here is not just the bad acting, the lousy dialogues, the incredibly lousy and staged sex scenes. The main trouble in this movie is the sexist, arrogant, wrongful view about the world and people. And when a filmmaker start this way, there's nothing that can save him from the impending doom. 

People were leaving the theater constantly, they were dropping like flies. However, rather than doing that by how explicit the sex is, I think people did leave for the sole reason of how bad is this movie. It's unbearable in fact. And we see no end to it, two hours and fifteen minutes of sheer bad filmmaking. Not could be more far from deep emotion, an intense love story and visceral sex. 

Love. Directed and written by Gaspar Noé. With: Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman,
Kiara Kristin. France/Belgium, 2015, 135 min., Dolby Digital, Color, 3D (Cinema).

PS: For me, what Gaspar Noé tried to do in Love was attempted before by Michael Winterbottom with 9 Songs, a movie that I like lot despite the all the bad reviews. Some friends do think it is a pretentious movie. I, on the other hand, consider it honest, full of beauty and crude poetry, close to what a relationship can truly be. It is not simulated, it is real, in my opinion. The old premise of sex, drugs and rock n' roll is presented without artifices, only by two lovers on the screen, with the help of live rock performances on . This movie is awfully underestimated, I guess.

PPS: Joe told me once that we should praise even the movies that we dislike for the simple fact that they were made, because a film production is always a miracle. Well, my glass is half empty about this matter, and I can't share his optimistic take. For me, some movies are a waste of money and time, when there's so many talented filmmakers waiting for a chance to show the world what they can do. I'm usually reluctant to point the finger, though - I know I'm expressing a personal view that is not shared by many. But in the case of Love, I'm not cautious at all: it is awful. Period.