Sex with Love

The first thing one would have to ask about this movie is is it well written? The answer to that would have to be no. The next question would have to be is it entertaining? The answer to that would have to be hell, yes. A bawdy comedy about the various sex problems of three different couples and how they battle to overcome them. Many of the scenes are predictable and very much angled towards the sexual at the expense of probability. This is what one would have to call low comedy, but even so it holds the attention, wanting to know how the individual stories will eventually be resolved. Some of the scenes are just laugh-out loud ridiculous - one especially with a sexually frustrated husband too short to initially climb on top of a washing machine to have sex with his niece, another with a faithless husband trying to reach urgent orgasm with his secretary in order to reach the phone across the room before it stops ringing. This isn't a good movie but it's very enjoyable and a decent enough way to pass the time. One can only speculate on the disturbance this movie must have caused on its initial release in the Catholic countries of South America. An amusing alternative to all the dreck that Hollywood turns out.

Sexo Con Amor was much anticipated and became an immediate box office hit in its origin country Chile. Being an explicit sex-comedy in an uptight country this was understandable. But that's about everything positive that can be said about it. The storyline is foreseeable, the characters schematic and the humour childish. Kind of an uncensored 90-minutes Chilean soap comedy.

Go see any Argentinian movie instead.

This film really made me laugh. It's not like those typical American movies in which sex is portrayed with prudery, timidity or solemnity. The sex scenes are portrayed in an open way. What I like in many Spanish and hispano-American films is the care with which they choose the actors/actresses. The chemistry among the actors/actresses is taken into consideration. That's why their sex, friendship and romantic scenes are much more intense than in their American counterparts. This film is a joy to see and hear. It's entertaining and thought-provoking. Some Spanish and hispano-American films I recommend are: "Pantaleon y las visitadoras", "La nina santa" "Todo sobre mi madre", "Maria Full of Grace" "Mar Adentro", "Sexo por compassion" (see this one after "Sexo con amor") etc.. I live in Brazil and would like to see much more Spanish-speaking films. There should be a greater integration among Latin-American countries.

Simple and funny comedy that take a real picture of many Latin American people. This could be the beginning of the "destape", see this is observe how Chileans starting in sex. She and He. Both, you could have a good moment buying this movie.

Boris Quercia, director, is an actor that could be a good director if continue this way, anyway, you also may see: "El Rey De ls Huevones", his 2006 movie that too have excellent press coverage more for his quality and unrestricted way to show Chileans way to do things.

And please don't believe that guatemalteco guy that say this is a bad movie, over 3 million people saw that movie only in Chile.

Sexo Con Amor is a glorified soap-opera and has become the most successful home grown film in Chilean cinematic history. Its soap opera status is no bad thing, in fact the film's success stems from the fact that, like the previous reocrd holding film, El Chacotero Sentimental, which itself was based on a radio programme, it provides a refreshing slice of reality of what the real Chilean gets up to in bed.

In a country by tradition conseravtive and Catholic, it may surprise viewers to see the director having sex with his teenage niece on top of a washing machine, or his wife masturbating with a courgette, yet this comic hyperbole serves to emphasise the fact that Chileans ARE at times unfaithful, they do have sex before marriage. Indeed, the apparent soap opera layer to the film masks the issues raised. As the title implies, the film focuses on the issues of sex and love, and the 6 main protagonists comprise 3 couples who attend an evening class to discuss the problems they have with their sex lives. Among the problems which director Boris Quercia relates to the viewers are those of infidelity (in a country where divorce is illegal), unwanted pregnancy (in a country where abortion is illegal), homosexuality (in a continent where machismo dominates) and incest. Alcohol, drugs, and violence play secondary roles to the sexual politics taking place. The extreme comedy provided by the explosion of truths surrounding the Chilean en la cama projects the film as a statement in Latin American film - this is the Chilean in all his naked glory. Many will criticise the soap opera 'dumbing down' of major issues, but this accessibility has reached the largest audience in domestic film history, and also, those critics would do well to read a book by Mario Vargas Llosa 'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter'. Not only does this book provide the Latin American opinion of the Argentine, but it portrays the soap opera as a central part of contemporary culture, which it is. Soap opera becomes escapism, art, and most importantly, reality. It also subtley raises issues such as divorce, the role of the father figure, and national identity. Quercia uses soap opera for the same effects. Social criticisms are raised in a comic manner, and the film helps to define a recent boom in Chilean cinema, alongside El Chacotero Sentimental and Taxi Para Tres.

The authentic chileanness is what comes to define this film. Mise-en-scene such as glasses of pisco-sour, bottles of vino tinto chileno, images of Cerro San Cristobal, Alvaro eating Reineta fish, talk of the World Cup in '98 - this is Chilean film basking in its Chileanness. The language of a cast plucked mainly from soap operas, such as ex-Pura Sangre star Sigrid Alegria, is a strong Chilean brand of Castellano, 'como estay?' 'al tiro' 'huevon' etc, make the film truely Chilean. As a foreigner watching the film shortly after its release in Cine Hoyts Huerfanos in Santiago, the scene when Pato Contreras sits in his car, swearing at Alegria for leaving him for her own boyfriend, his tirade of Chilean insults ('concha su madre' etc), made me, and the other 1000 people present, laugh out loud. I released that the locals where actually laughing at themselves, at their idiosyncratic way of speaking Spanish. Finally there was a film, 100% Chilean, with which Chilean people could identify, with which a Chilean director could raise social questions without he himself 'disappearing' (as in the days of the Military Regime). Sexo Con Amor may be an extended soap opera, but it is a defining moment in Chilean, and in Latin American, film history.