Reżyseria:
Gaspar NoéScenariusz:
Gaspar NoéZdjęcia:
Benoît DebieObsada:
Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman, Klara Kristin, Ugo Fox, Juan Saavedra, Gaspar Noé, Isabelle Nicou, Benoît Debie, Vincent Maraval, Déborah Révy, Xamira Zuloaga (więcej)Opisy(1)
Paryż. Murphy (Karl Glusman) tkwi w nudnym małżeństwie. Pewnego dnia otrzymuje wiadomość od matki swojej byłej dziewczyny. Kobieta twierdzi, że jej córka zaginęła. Murphy rozpoczyna poszukiwania swojej dawnej miłości. Jednocześnie, jak fala tsunami, powracają wspomnienia. Mężczyzna od nowa przeżywa swój burzliwy związek z ognistą Elektrą (Aomi Muyock)... (Cineman)
(więcej)Recenzje (6)
Gaspar Noe’s Love is not a controversial film. It depicts sex scenes as part of a relationship with everything that entails and everything that matters in it. But it is also not a cinematic event. Because unlike Blue Is the Warmest Colour, which is based on similar principles, Love is unable to portray authentic human moments. Noé is a visual filmmaker, used to image-based storytelling and watching characters from a distance, setting them in the colors and mood of the environment. But he’s not one to dissect their feelings up close, which in my opinion doesn’t do Love any good. He has to help himself by unnecessarily letting the image fade to black during the conversations of two people (but it looks cool and accentuates Noé’s filmmaking creativity, right?). The porn-like erotic scenes are accompanied by fantastically chosen music, which however steals all of their authenticity and animalism. And the chronologically disrupted mosaic of events makes it impossible to analyze the evolution of the relationship that it is the central element of the film. I raised my rating to three stars because the last act, which focuses only on one of the characters and his inner turmoil, where after two hours, Noé finally gets to his beloved philosophy and links the existential motifs of the story (love, child, death, loneliness and emptiness). But as a whole, the film comes across as an empty pseudo-art pose. Had it been made by Xavier Dolan, it could have been an attractive film from both the art and emotional perspectives.
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Pornography in word, not in image. You won’t see such similarly artistic compositions of variously intertwined bodies as Noé’s in hardcore porn. The bodies are mostly shot in full (not fragmented), with imaginative yet relatively subtle use of colour, playing with light and shadow, as well as with the depth of the space (though you become aware of the 3D effect thanks rather to the ejaculation into the camera). However, with its run-of-the-mill story and the strained sentences uttered by the protagonist, who resembles a young Dennis Hopper (but without Hopper’s charisma and animal magnetism), Love isn’t far from being a porn production. The reluctance to draw a clear line between love and sex is not very effective if you don’t take love in any form other than the physical into consideration. A significant part of Murphy and Elektra’s relationship is recapitulated through the shoving of certain objects into certain orifices, which is nice to watch thanks to the attractive bodies of the young actors, but I don’t understand what viewers are supposed to take away from it other than arousal (but I’m happy to let someone who better understands Noé’s intentions explain). I understand that the physical interpretation of love corresponds to the fact that the protagonist is a self-centred prick who doesn’t think much about anything other than his own dick (though he does have good taste in films, as evidenced by the posters for movies such as M, Taxi Driver and The Birth of a Nation, among which the director seems to want to rank his own work). However, Noé cannot decide whether to condemn Murphy for this (which corresponds to the internal monologues revealing what a huge asshole he really is) or sympathise with him – the longing for love in the form that Murphy recalls is not in any way relativised through most of the film (not to mention the character’s autobiographical aspects or naming his son Gaspar). The way in which the intense sexual encounters are framed changes only in the last third of this inordinately long film. Sex is no longer framed as an activity that is beautiful and enjoyable, but as dark, exhausting and empty, i.e. like it was depicted in Shame. Due to the fact that these darker scenes chronologically took place before the more pleasant scenes, we are led to reassess what we saw before. It raises the question of whether Murphy was not actually a man hopelessly in love the whole time we were watching him, but simply addicted to sex. However, in the context of the many preceding minutes, I do not see the ambivalent ending, which hints at a possible slide into the hell of his own passions and perhaps sincerely intended sympathy for Murphy’s late (as in any melodrama) awakening, as a stirring challenge aimed at the viewer, but only as the latest manifestation of the creative cluelessness about how to make a meaningful film that communicates with the viewer almost exclusively through erotic scenes. Other filmmakers, such as Nagisa Oshima with In the Realm of the Senses, have managed to present an effective solution. Gaspar Noé, on the other hand, only spends two hours trying out possible methods, furiously stroking his own ego. Though it’s captivating at times, it’s mostly uninteresting. 50%
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An original film about penises, which refers not only to the dicks on display, but also the main protagonist and the director.
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Together with feature-length HCs like Blue Is the Warmest Color or Hungry for You, Love forms my favorite "porn story cover" cycle. It's charming how Noé covers the stages of physical and emotional love, from playfulness to swingers, with mathematical precision. Only the effort is in vain of some adolescent viewers when they try to absorb so much openness and name specific things by their own names. But for the babies, there are at least a few jokes left in the dialogue about art school students deciding if 2001: A Space Odyssey is the best film. This is such a transparent classic that it can essentially satisfy everyone.
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Entanglement of sound, image, and sex in a single threesome - those are the strongest moments of the film: like in the orgy scene (where there weren't just three...), where the rhythmic movements of copulating bodies pulse in flickering light and creep into the gaps between the roaring music tones. Or like in the dual disco-sex scene, where the music and laser lights vibrate and envelop young bodies even before they intertwine during sex. If Enter the Void was about the limbo of personal life mistakes haunting the main character in the form of recurring memories, it applies even more to Love. Memory and personal torment, the inability to suppress unpleasant memories that return according to their own laws - linear storytelling is therefore correctly suppressed. Mistakes and frustrating moments coexist with happy ones - they bother them, push them away. As a result, the ending (in contrast on the linear axis) belongs to despair. /// I can't decide whether one of the film's effects, namely the identification (both by the director and the viewer) with the main character, is an advantage or a disadvantage. It is undeniable that Noé partly projects himself into the character of Murphy, but at the same time, Noé ridicules himself - with a ridiculous persona he plays himself; by admitting that Murphy is really close to being just a talking phallus. On the other hand, the attempt to evoke identification between the viewer and Murphy is a bit pandering in my opinion - Murphy's character is like a product of a marketing copycat of an advertising agency for a target age group: his main entertainment is sex, he likes movies, from B-movies to the good ones (so it doesn't seem like he's a complete idiot), there are no books in his apartment, and he takes light drugs but he’s definitely not a major addict. He studies at university but does not work too hard - parties, nightclubs, etc. Does the use of the first-person singular form imply that we should identify with the protagonist? And does Noé want to guide us through the same limbo and to the same awakening as the main character? Thanks, but it's not necessary and won't be for most viewers. Or is it just the director's personal confession? /// The main negative aspect of the film is the occasional ejaculation of certain obvious aspects directly into the viewer's face, presented in an unnecessarily simplistic form (again, that innocent child as in Enter the Void!) or through simple speeches by the characters (again, see Enter the Void).
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Gaspar Noé has shown that pornography can be part of a relatively mainstream film with a story, but he has also shown that it will probably require some plot or additional elements, so that it does not simply appear as an attempt to shock and show what most cinema viewers have not yet seen. In this regard, he truly shows interesting moments with a significant fixation on the penis.
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