Love
As sense-assaulting as mind-numbing, a flaccid entry on ‘sentimental sexuality’ from provocateur Gaspar Noé.
Formally adventurous but mentally debilitating, this flick starts with a wide, static shot of a couple in the middle of a mutual masturbation, ending in a guy’s on-screen ejaculation (one of three in the movie). Exactly what you’d expect from an opener, when the director is Gaspar Noé. His undeniable strength lies in creating lurid, stylized, claustrophobic imagery with trippy sound design; not much else. He has a light touch when it comes to setting a dismal mood (miserabilism is his thing; he never settles for anything less than depressing), and apparently no thoughts to support anything outside the form. Having seen the movie, you’ll leave a serious doubter in Noé’s ability as a storyteller — a suspicion set up for life. Whether Love even had a screenplay is a q-mark. As in the director’s previous work, stable is his interest in the underworld of lowlifes, drugs, outlier experiences. That you’ll be off-put by his rather shopworn worldviews (on love, life, art-world, cinema; all of them immediately disposable), with a shoddy guidance of amateur young actors, is a sure thing.
This crushingly illiterate movie was made with one idea — to show unusually explicit sex in cinema. Nothing wrong with that; quite the contrary. The film’s highlight — sexual and otherwise — was a slowly, calmly filmed scene of a threesome (two girls and a guy), choreographed with impressive agility and set to a guitar score. Very lush visuals, elegantly restrained in the placement of camera and lighting (shot by Benoît Debie). The moments when characters don’t have sex are true deal-breakers, though. Empty talk fills most of the movie; line readings and generally awful acting make for an eye-wateringly bad experience to sit through. They deepen the despair that Noé’s distinct visuals convey so easily. Much space is left for glorifying the Argentinian director himself (a child is named Gaspar; the main hero (/jerk) is a stand-in for the director; Noé even casts himself as a slimy art gallerist). Actors were chosen on the strength of their photogenic looks while having sex; their acting outside the sexual realm leaves much to wish for (one imagines it would be hard to find solid actors willing to perform bold sex scenes in a feature film). The characters they play are slight, shallow, and make you indifferent (at best). Their personalities are secondary to sex acts in which they are to participate. The main guy (Karl Glusman) excels at moping, his voiceover being a total drag. His first sex partner (Aomi Muyock) seems like unstable, needy wannabe in need of a brain. Nothing of substance can equally be said about a second woman in the triangle (Klara Kristin) — other than she’s athletic.
Noé is partial to using tightly controlled, widescreen framing (he obviously likes to center his subjects in the shot). He prefers oppressive, dingy environments as filming locations, and opts to fill the spaces with vivid colors (solid green, yellow, red often visible on walls, clothes, objects; non-spare use of strobing lights). His imagery and sound design try to approximate in you an altered state of consciousness — the formal language which he developed in his flashy previous entries (Enter the Void, most notably). What is also admirable in this director’s inventory is his organic editing, which presumably imitates eye blinks (long blackouts between the cuts), and a penchant for non-linear narrative.
Outside of the sexual boundary-pushing, the film has nothing to engage the viewer with. It is devastatingly impoverished of ideas and observations to develop a feature film around. Who green-lit this film and on what basis? Those are the questions you’ll be seriously pondering during the screening — Love is needlessly long; you will be bored, and the amount of ongoing copulation will exasperate you.
