Curiosa

Now this is based on actual photography and pictures that were taken as the movie tells us at the end. But it also is a story about forbidden things. Forbidden love, forbidden pleasures, forbidden photos and positions. Who is being hurt in all this? Who needs saving though? This is something that the movie is not really making much of a point.

For better or worse, there is quite the focus on the nudity (no pun intended) and the passion our main character seeks to get pleasure. You can interpret things and read some stuff I reckon, on the other hand maybe the one scene where a not erect penis is shown might be all the answer you (and she) need. Just saying

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.

The basic plot could have been interesting: a woman is more or less forced to marry the best friend of her lover, who in turn marries her sister. Can love survive and find a way in this unconventional mess?

In the end I didn't really care, mostly because everything feels and looks like a very elegant and pretentious soap opera.

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.

The most important element in this feature is nudity, it is exposed as nothing and meaning nothing. Following the bad script, we have two historical writers here Pierre and Marie, but they are so poorly written that they don't even personalize their most relevant characteristics in the film.

For sure it is one of the worst French movies I have ever seen. And it is so bad that I can't wasted time writing about it.