Disc Reviews

Romance Review

• 11th Nov 2014

Earlier this year the Lars Von Trier double films Nymphomaniac caused something of a stir for its explicit sexual content including erect penises and visible vaginas. This stepped beyond the realms of boobs and pubic hair which became visible in the early 1970s before disappearing from the cinema screen by the end of the decade. However, by the 1990s frank nudity was to make the occasional re-appearance. Such films in the 1980s as 9½ Weeks (1986) and other such glossy erotica were not explicit or even erotic or saucy just steamy and restrictions in censorship with a resurgence of the religious right and conservatives gained some ground on the sexual front in the US at any rate. Only Italy kept its end up with the films of Tinto Brass while Peter Greenaway was somewhat more explicit in Britain but in the latter’s case this was arty nudity. In many ways Catherine Breillat’s Romance in 1999 did break new boundaries which makes the recent Nymphomaniac look a little less shocking. Whereas Von Trier likes to shock through ‘art’, Breillat takes a more overtly feminist stamp on her subject matter – namely relationships and whether sex and love are inseparable, which the film clearly questions.

Romance starred Caroline Ducey as Marie, a teacher who is in a relationship with a model. Paul and Marie to all intents and purposes are a couple apparently in love with each other, but it would seem, as Marie observes only if there is a table between them. In the bedroom he just wants to watch or sleep while she wants to discuss why they don’t have sex and why she is not wanted making her feel disgusting. She attempts a BJ, but he stays mister floppy. This is repeated each night making Marie feel even more depressed. She is not prepared to split with Paul as she claims that she is in love with him. However, she warns him that she needs to get her sexual satisfaction from elsewhere and while she can do this he can’t as this would prove that this ‘was him and not her’. She begins with a pick up in a bar, played by porn star Rocco Siffredi. Naturally someone like Siffredi will be able to satisfy her with his more than adequate manhood. She then moves to her head teacher at the school in which she works. He is an older man, who in his own words is not attractive and but has had many lovers and invites her back to his place where he proceeds to involve her in some S&M and tires her up. She is left humiliated by the experience but a never the less a relationship develops between the pair and she finds him otherwise sensitive and caring enough to get drawn into his games further. Marie’s sexual games or dalliances are getting more dangerous until one day she meets a man on the stairs who offers her a few francs to “lick her out”. Ultimately she is raped in this encounter on the stairs.

Labelled on its release as the “sexiest film ever made”, it is strangely un-erotic and un-sexy. That can be said about virtually every erotic mainstream film (with the possible exception of the aforementioned Brass or those of Russ Meyer, who’s films are deliberately exploitative and titillating making them a little more erotic). Ducey as Marie, mass of pubic hair aside is boyish in her physique and not really sexy. Was this deliberate on the part of Breillat to elicit a modicum of sympathy or at least some understanding from her boyfriend? During each episode of lovemaking/sex she discusses philosophically the notion of sex within relationships or one night stands (except when she is gagged by the head teacher) – maybe this is why her boyfriend has no interest. In the final few minutes of the film does become a revenge drama and it is a shame that the film does not make a little more of this. The film fails largely because there is no chemistry between the couple, no understanding as to why she has to go to such extremes to make her point instead of just ending it. Added to this her clothes, his putting on make-up for a photo shoot, their are apartment are all white highlighting perhaps the sterility of their relationship further compounding the lack of chemistry between the couple. And as for romance there is none in the film except that in the seduction between Ducey and a porn star.

There are no extras on the disc.

Chris Hick