Love 3D

Let's just get this out of the way, there is a lot of unsimulated sex in this movie. This is definitely on par with porn, but since it was shot with "real" actors it was allowed in theaters. I did see somewhere online that there is a super cut of all the sex scenes from this and it comes in at just under 30 minutes, so let that inform your decision to watch or not.

This is a story of a couple that are in a very sexual relationship and decide to invite their beautiful neighbor to join them. This causes problems.

If you like 9 Songs then you will most decidedly like this. Love probably features more sex but does offer a lot more plot as well.

This film tells the story of a man trapped with his wife and child, yet he keeps on thinking about his ex-girlfriend who is not contactable. The story then winds back in time to tell how his relationships with his ex-girlfriend and his wife come about.

I have heard about the gratuitous explicit sex scenes in the film, and indeed there is a prolonged sex scene every five minutes. The story is quite interesting, as the man reflects and reminisces about Elektra, who is so adventurous that she becomes increasingly unstable. The problems encountered by the man are quite real life, and viewers can easily relate to his situation. What strikes me is that the lighting effects of the film is very remarkable, the use of focused lighting enhances the mood a lot. The slow strobe effect in the swingers' club is captivating. Overall, "Love" is worth a watch as it depicts real life relationship problems.

I know I only rated it a seven out of ten but that's because I admit this film's faults. It certainly isn't near perfect but I felt very moved by the characters and their story. Lots of people may not be able to relate to this film however those of us that do can say that everything about this depiction of love has been experienced and is real. As a grown single adult living in today's dating world I can attest that the relationship between Murphy and Electra exists. Their obsession with each other and with sex that led them into a deep and possibly unreal infatuation was honest and thought provoking. Love sometimes doesn't make sense and can't be described or made logical. Their connection was what drove them into darkness, madness and despair. Love is completely all consuming on any level it's represented on. So many times have I given myself up for something that a year later I looked back on and couldn't reconcile my behavior, and so many times have I given myself up to something to only sabotage it before it completely devoured me. I don't know if I have been in love, but I have felt what these characters are going through and I wouldn't know what else to call it. In the vein of Harmony Korine and Lars von Trier I think Gasper Noe is a genius. Yes this movie is uncomfortable, yes the acting isn't great and yes the story is dry, but it's a genuine take on what relationships look like for some people in their mid twenties to early thirties and I loved every second of it.

Overly ambitious project about a millennial love arc that ends in heartbreak, but what are the lessons learned? Murphy (Karl Glusman) is an open-minded film student in Paris who meets Elektra (Aomi Muyock), and the two embrace their high sex drives with giddyness. However, after the relationship embraces polyamory and swingers culture, only one of the two is emotionally stable enough to handle it.

The film is directed really well by Noé, who by now should know well enough how to make it all super claustrophobic and uncomfortable for the viewer. The cinematography is good but relies too heavily on saturation but it's never really an issue. Nonlinear storytelling is clear, concise, and there's some really neat editing at parts. The story does drag often, and the film overall could've cut out 10-15 minutes of filler.

The real issue with "Love" is the lack of chemistry between Murphy and Elektra -- we just don't see it, pretty much ever. The writing is there, but the actors just cannot grasp it. This is largely because -- are you ready? -- they aren't actors; Noé met both Glusman and Muyock in a club one night and asked them to star. It's clear that he wanted to achieve the most organic and natural relationship dynamic on-screen by not using "real actors" -- but in what is supposed to be an emotionally charged film, that just doesn't work.

In fact, in a sort of disturbingly surreal manner, the very same issues that the film is trying to highlight in millennial relationships (emotional maturity and boundaries over sex) seem to show up in the unsimulated sex scenes between Glusman and Muyock. Glusman constantly falls out of character, allowing his own sexual desire to ruin the scene and any emotional impact Noé was looking for. Muyock seems bored and uninterested -- and who could blame her? -- likely due to Glusman's obvious zeal about getting paid to fuck her. I'm not sure he entirely understood the fact he was in an art film, and in remaining ignorant, he ends up verifying Noé's entire thesis: young adults, especially men, get lost in the idea of sexual nirvana over the thing that truly matters: love.

The second half of the film lifts the veil on Murphy's narcissistic and emotionally abusive behavior in the relationship, and tragically, Glusman is a good actor when portraying an unstable douchebag (and Muyock is phenomenal when screaming at him).

The film finishes the same place it starts, seeming to depict Murphy at rock-bottom in a horrible and accidental family dynamic: a fitting bookend to a relationship that was destroyed not by too much sex, but his own fear of it. The ending is eerie and powerful, and hints at the generational ripples that will be felt for decades because of his own actions. It's a great story, and sort of well-acted, but it ends up merely tripping up on its own interpretation of reality instead of offering us anything particularly new.

The script is laughable and the acting (often voice-over), too. The 3D sex is well marketed. And yes, during certain scenes people got up and left. Yet. The film doesn't argue to be anything beyond a meandering stroll into the gallows melancholy. And it does this very very well. The film features no highbrow intellectual conversations but instead, favors the same lines you've probably slung at your lovers. Again and again and again. Just like the sex you've had with your lovers again and again and again. You know their bodies and you know how to please them and above all, you know how to hurt them. Sorrow. There's a resplendent simplicity here that hypnotizes the viewer.

You hear music banging inside the club, yet the lovers are outside in halflight. Having sex, obviously. This is a good image of what this film surprisingly achieves best: intimacy. And it fights for that with it's magnificent camera-work and editing.

But what would this review be if it didn't talk about the 3D sex? Love and cinema are inseparable. Love stories are why you stick glued to a chair for a couple of hours. Raw sex is part of love, yet, films used to cut to birds necking after a kiss. Then it became steamy windows. Signs, metaphors, analogies, semiotic nausea. And here, Noé takes that away which makes the film even coarser, and ultimately more brutal.

I wanted to write this review because the whole marketing ("finally a love story restricted for -16) and shock value (an eye-rolling warning in the opening credits) have cheapened what this film has achieved and I encourage viewers to look beyond.