Curiosa

Curiosa is an interesting erotic film about a woman's love and her sexuality, feminism crashing with machismo, a strange relationship about a free soul married woman who sometimes is a submissive object for love to a casanova photographer. The music score is amazing and the performances are correct, great filming locations, costumes and cinematography. The erotic scenes are perfectly filmed. Negative points are that sometimes the script is very slow and repetitive.

A good erotic art film based on true events, but it could be much better, something is missing.

French period film about Marie de Heredia, a woman who discovered eroticism and literature through her lover Pierre Louÿs while married to another poet. The subject is interesting, but it felt quite slow to me. A true story about erotic photography, sexual freedom and artistic creativity in early 20th century France.

Visually gorgeous. The costumes... the lighting, the interiors..., everything with that impressionist painting aesthetic that French cinema does so well.

But well, as I said, too slow, I struggled to maintain interest. Very slow-paced, almost contemplative, and although I understand it's trying to create a sensual atmosphere, it constantly becomes tedious. I didn't fully connect with the characters or their love story.

It is set in France during the time women had little choice in their lives. Often sheltered, knowing little about their bodies, and marriages were more for convenience and security than for love. Pierre takes pictures. First, with a camera that uses glass plates, and then being more happy to get a Kodak box camera. He has an Algerian woman, Zohra that he is partial towards, and she performs erotic dances before small groups of friends, as well as posing for him. Marie, who is in a rather loveless marriage, starts an affair with him. And her husband, Henri seems to accept that. And at first Marie accepts that Pierre sleeps around, but soon decides that she really loves him, and tells him she doesn't love Henri. This is not what Pierre has in mind, however. So as expected, things start to quickly get complicated. The cinematography is excellent, and crisp for those who may watch the movie for only one thing, and they will not be disappointed. But it can get boring. Part of that is the movie is paced to how things would unfold back then, not as would be current.

Social and cultural rules bound this woman to experience forced erotism while the same norms impulse voyeurism in a very finite group of men. In the end, pleasure is learnt and forced by continous dissaponting relationships. Noémie Merlant carries positively the weight of this chaotic film.

The basic feeling is about a form of improvisation. Few erotic photographs and a story who use every cliche about French fin de siecle. Two friends and their love for the same woman. The option of her father for marriage and her option for a long, hot , sensual adventure. The new detail complicated all and a drop of exotism. Nice photography and a lot of nudes. And a conventional end. Sure, obvious good intentions. But, after its end, the story seems more than thin, the characters - just sketches and the purpoise - to create an erotic film, using different pretextes. And, after all, the sin remains the less courage of director to give a coherent and fair story and not a sort of cinematographic experiment. So, in large lines, a decent try.