L'amour violé

Well, I have to hand one thing to the French...as long as they are not directing comedies, they are very good at producing excellent dramatic, or erotic cinematography.

"Rape of Love" is a sad, powerful, and poignant look at the events in the life of a woman following her brutal rape. The acting by Nathalie Nell is incredible. In watching her, I actually felt extreme pity for her character. Her portrayal as this sweet and innocent victim, transformed into a different person after the attack, is quite compelling.

Although tough to watch the rape scenes, the rest of the movie is excellent, and very well produced. The dialogue, story line, plot development, and cinematography all work cohesively to keep the viewer riveted. This is a very well produced movie.

This movie is not for the squeamish. A young French nurse is taken out in the woods and brutally raped and sodomized. The rape scene itself is pretty graphic and might be too much for some viewers. The film picks up from there and shows how the system treats the rape victim and how it affects the victim. She finally is able to come to terms with what happened in an attempt to bring her rapists to justice.

Yannick Bellon is a female André Cayatte:not only she broaches serious subjects as he did before her (homosexuality ("la triche" ); breast cancer ("l'amour nu" );ecology ("l'affût" )) but she also uses Cayatte's actress in " les risques du métier" -about a schoolteacher falsely accused of child abuse- ,Natalie Nell.

Bellon's film deals with rape.It's probably her most successful movie,since it was made at a time women were (I hope it has changed)often reluctant to tell their family and friends about what "happened" .Yannick Bellon succeeds in making us feel her disgust for human bestiality:the rape scene lasts about ten minutes and does not turn the viewer into a peeping tom;her heroine's sufferings are so intense we often feel like looking away.

Bellon is feminism flesh on the bone: a very interesting sequence takes place in the school where children's drawings show how a woman 's work is never done:while dad's is working,or watching TV,or reading his newspaper ,mum's cooking,ironing,etc ,not even PTAing.The children's games are also revealing :even when they play ,girls cannot take boys' parts.OK it was in 1978 and times have changed.And Bellon's work may seem superficial and one-sided.But this scene when the victim's MOTHER tells her daughter that NOTHING can be done,that if you're born a woman you're born to be hurt is really spooky.Her boyfriend's attitude is a coward one even if he redeems himself at the end.

"L'amour violé" may be a dated movie.But things like that are still happening,still in 2005.It's a movie that needed to be done.

"Rape of Love" is a poignant story of a rape victim and her emotional ordeal after the crime.A beautiful nurse Nicole is dragged off her bike by four macho rapists and put into their van,taken to a remote shack and finally gang-raped and sodomized.The rape scene is particularly nasty and grueling to watch.After going through emotional torment Nicole decides to take legal action against the men.The main performance of Nathalie Nells is very convincing and believable.I was actually searching for French exploitation flick "Viol,la Grande Peur" by Pierre Chevalier and then I found this movie.Now I am glad that I did it.A must-see for the lovers of ambitious and hard-hitting cinema.8 out of 10.