rating:
(out of
4 stars)France; 1999
Directed by Catherine Breillat; produced by Jean-François Lepetit; written by Catherine Breillat
Starring Caroline Ducey, Sagamore Stévenin, François Berléand, Rocco Siffredi, Reza Habouhossein, Ashley Wanninger
For some reason a Catherine Breillat film is always slightly interesting and never much more. Her films simply don't appeal to me and in my opinion have little useful things to say. You have to admire what she is trying and especially how, but that's about it. She explores female sexuality in many different ways, and does this as graphic as possible, to make sure it feels real. Well, I guess. Men are often pigs, also in 'Romance', and although she doesn't let women completely off the hook, she does see them as complex intellectual beings.
The male character is also complex, but a pig, and although he has not just sex on his mind, he does seem simple and single minded. He has stopped making love to Marie (Caroline Ducey) which gives her an opportunity to explore her own needs with other men. On the other hand, she is still deeply in love with him, which we never understand. We see her being frustrated around her boyfriend while she has numerous sexual encounters, often with a violent undertone, as if she wants to punish herself. Her voice-over tries to explain the events, but I was not impressed.
True, we see these situations in real life. Women stay with their boyfriends or husbands without any reason for the world around them. But Breillat leaves it at that. She almost says that people around those women do not understand it, but neither do the women themselves. Fair enough, but why then this film? I think most people could have come to that conclusion without 'Romance'.
I know Breillat does not use her films as an excuse to show explicit sexual material; she shows sex in the least exciting way. But for some reason her films still feel as the experiment 'Une vraie jeune fille' was, where a serious story and sexual explicit material exist together. She has succeeded better than most, but that is hardly a real compliment.