Curiosa

Social and cultural rules bound this woman to experience forced erotism while the same norms impulse voyeurism in a very finite group of men. In the end, pleasure is learnt and forced by continous dissaponting relationships. Noémie Merlant carries positively the weight of this chaotic film.

The basic feeling is about a form of improvisation. Few erotic photographs and a story who use every cliche about French fin de siecle. Two friends and their love for the same woman. The option of her father for marriage and her option for a long, hot , sensual adventure. The new detail complicated all and a drop of exotism. Nice photography and a lot of nudes. And a conventional end. Sure, obvious good intentions. But, after its end, the story seems more than thin, the characters - just sketches and the purpoise - to create an erotic film, using different pretextes. And, after all, the sin remains the less courage of director to give a coherent and fair story and not a sort of cinematographic experiment. So, in large lines, a decent try.

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.

Just a quick review. I saw this based on the poster art (an attractive woman in French knickers). I have to say after Larry Clark's The Smell Of Us it ranks as the most boring film I've seen this year. The production, sets and costumes are all first rate, but how do you make taboo subjects boring? Watch this film and find out.

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.