Desejo Selvagem

I saw this movie without knowing what to expect. But from the beginning to the end, the movie grabs your attention and never lets go.It does so with an engrossing story line and gripping eroticism.In my opinion, this is truly one of the best original stories I have ever seen.

The acting in the film is great. All the actors are natural and believable. Emmanuel Xuereb, with the right amount of 5 o'clock shadow and sunken cheeks, is the perfect Gabe. He is both sad and so so kinky at the same time. I felt like I really cared about Gabe during the film. His pain seems to reach out from the movie screen and grabs my heart. And everyone can relate to Irene; the slightly bored working woman who desires some adventure. It is the kind of connection that makes this movie special.

I watched this with my boyfriend and he loved it as well. I recommend this movie whole heartedly

In Los Angeles, Irene (Charis Michelsen) works at an advertising agency and lives a boring, loveless and sexually unsatisfying marriage with her husband Carl (Lee Holmes). When she meets the mysterious stranger Gabe (Emmanuel Xuereb), they have an erotic love affair breaking into houses of strangers and stealing their lives for a moment. Both are trying to escape from their pasts with a game that pushes them to the limit of their relationship. But reality is there and can not be forgotten.

"Erosion" is a dramatic "unerotic"-thriller about infidelity of a sexually unsatisfied woman with a promising beginning but a boring development and conclusion. One meaning of erosion is "a gradual decline of something"; in this case, of the morality of the lead character Irene. The plot keeps sexual tension but goes nowhere with the non- explicit game of the lovers. The director Ann Lu is not bold enough and in the end, "Erosion" is neither a drama or romance nor an erotic thriller. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Desejo Selvagem" ("Wild Desire")

If you don't like to be spoon fed a story and instead, enjoy piecing the story together yourself, you will take great pleasure in a film like EROSION.

I saw the film at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. It opens in the middle of the story without the traditional set up. It threw me off a little at first because I didn't know anything about the characters or their conflicts or relationships. Nevertheless, after about 10 minutes, I realized why the story was told this way. Without an upfront setup, I as an audience really got to use my instinct to follow the characters, to feel their pleasure and pain, and to experience what they're going through, without passing on judgments, making assumptions, or knowing where I'm going as a participant. My favorite scene is the costume shop scene where Gabe, the lead character, delivers his monologue on his philosophy of life and the rules of Erosion. That's when I really felt the emotional connection with the character and started to really appreciate the director's choice of storytelling.

This film demands the audience's full attention, as well as participation. If you invest enough of your time and attention following the story, the reward is definitely memorable.

Once upon a time a film would tell you a story. If something in the story was extremely sordid, bloody or harrowing the director would miss this part out whilst at the same time allowing you to work out what was happening or had happened through sound or consequence or symbolism. This allowed a far wider audience to see films with really quite important messages.

Here we have the opposite method. Put together the saddest, most painful or just dull aspects of a film that would once have been tastefully left out, and challenge the audience to start trying to imagine the story. We find we can do it that way, being the imaginative creatures we are and having done the work we're pretty much told anyway gradually, but I for one found I didn't really want to. This film made me think... It made me think I'd rather be sat in front of Lethal Weapon. Now that is not good.

I saw this film and was blown away at how truthful the love scenes felt. The acting (especially Charis Michelsen) is totally convincing from beginning to end. Give it 5 minutes at the beginning and the payoff is one that you'll never forget.

It's very erotic without being graphic or lewd. It sets up simple situations between the main characters that completely draw you into their world of trysts in other peoples' homes and makes you feel nervous like someone might walk in and catch you in the midst of doing something taboo.

I loved it and hope that Ann Lu continues to make more films like this one.