9/10
love as it happens
2 March 2000
It's a pretty long movie, but I'm so entertained by everything in it that I don't give a damn if it all falls neatly into a precise trajectory. My first viewing had me grinning in sheer pleasure. Now, having bought the video, I sometimes start and stop it at random places, and always am immediately engaged wherever I happen to dive in.

The film is not at all linear, but elaborates on a situation: Paul, having made a promising start as a philosophy prodigy, has become frozen, only to watch his friends all become successful. His love life is similarly suspended: he can neither be with his girlfriend of ten years nor let her go, while engaging in clandestine affairs with women who either torture him or are unavailable. The movie consists of all the permutations of romance and sex and humiliation and mistakes he goes through as he squirms his way back into life again. Now, I don't know if this sounds fun or not, but what's wonderful about it is, first of all, that it's very funny, and second, that it's so real.

Love and sex are presented as they happen in real life - nothing neat and clean, but a chaos made of moments of fascination an passion and searching and confusion made by two (or more) people whose lives are deep waters. Everything here is instantly recognizable and completely unpredictable. Candid, sexy...
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