Love (2015): A movie about Blood, Sperm, and Tears?
Or it’s just a story about Love from the perspective of sex.
An unintentional Tik-Tok post revived the movie on Netflix, more than 4 years after its initial release. It all began when a user bella_ashey, uploaded a video recommending the film, in the form of a challenge, for a new Polish movie currently trending on Netflix, 365 Days.
Consequently, Netflix started doing that as well. Both of these movies are currently featuring in the Top 10 movie list of Netflix, while both share a common underlying theme, erotic romance. Only, Gasper Noe’s Love is much more than being a pornographic movie.
Love (2015), is the fourth feature film by the French-based Argentine filmmaker, yet it would have been his second and would have featured stars like Vincent Cassel and Monika Belucci in the lead roles. But as detailed and unsettling (for many) the subject matter is, it was bound to push a mainstream celebrity couple to pass it. Hence came another disturbing understudy of love and abuse, Irreversible.
Thirteen years later, the director determined to make a movie about Love from the perspective of sex landed in Paris and delivered a stunning portrait of unsimulated sex. The movie features a couple madly in love with each other, who live by the definition of Paris, Living. The movie is about the couple and their experimental sexual practices, which bring them close and yet tore them apart.
Murphy: Secrets make you stronger.
Electra: Secrets make you darker.
Gasper Noe went with a similar narratological style of Irreversible, i.e. the movie goes flashbacks in reverse order, though it’s more like unsystematically jumping around in the scenes. Yet I happened to enjoy the movie, which is a rarely odd thing for a person who is obsessed with tight screenplay and narratological expression.
No, it was not overtly intimate sex scenes. It was the scenic beauty of France and philosophical and meaningful conversations between the characters. In that sense, it reminded me of one of the favorite movies of all time, Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise.
Only that Before Sunrise is 75% philosophical and 25% Romantic.
While Love (2015) is 25% Philosophical & 75% Love (& Sex since they are one and the same thing in this movie).
At one point the couple is talking about their first interaction and how artsy they were, back then. “Probably we are not that good artists as we thought we were.” That self-awareness and acknowledgment got stuck with me. It might not seem as influential alone, but coupled with the next line and you get a painful realization about love:
Love doesn’t necessarily mean being a good influence on one another.
It’s something which no one talks about. Being in love is one thing, but its sustainability depends upon compromises we make, intentionally or unintentionally. Life is all about balancing Love and Passion. Yet humans have been compromising one at the cost of the other.
Talking about passion and art, the movie presents a hazy and hypnotic image of raw sex, thus portraying distinguished artistry that is both humane and scenic. Yet it’s not solely dependent on the unchoreographed performances of the actors, rather it’s a full-blown package of artistry — which includes skillful camera placements by cinematographer, Benoît Debie, and somber music.
The cinematography — sometimes hovering above the dancing tongues (and torsos), or sitting idle observing every thrust — gave a voyeuristic yet humane view. Wherein, the music aid in normalizing the evident awkwardness of the partly romantic, partly pornographic scenes. These two factors coupled with heightened emotional availability of the actors paint a tranquilized piece of artwork which shouldn’t be judged for its absence of material — since it depicts the life and that’s how life is.
Though the script might not be tight enough, it had its miny-victories. like when they established the premise for Omi (Clara Kristen) that her mother wanted to abort her. It served as the purpose of why she won’t abort Murphy’s kid, despite it being as unplanned as a broken condom.
Or the name of the protagonists — Murphy and Electra, derived from Murphy’s Law and Electra Complex. Both of these phenomena had a mini-shoutout in the movie. In its totality, Gasper Noe paints an intimate picture of sexual ecstasy in order to bridge the gap between love and sex.
