This explicit study of sexual obsession, which has some interesting parallels with Vicente Aranda's equally torrid LA MIRADA DEL OTRO (1998), was my first encounter with the work of the controversial French film-maker. Even if the film does feature adult film star Rocco Siffredi (who does get to do his thing on camera, of course), it turned out to be more restrained than I had been led to believe. Don't get me wrong: the sex scenes on show here do not leave anything to the imagination...and that, in a way, renders them less erotic and thus less effective. Having said that, the film benefits from a strong leading performance from Catherine Ducey who, although portraying a character whose abrupt changes of mood proved rather off-putting at first, eventually grows into her part as, through the course of the film, we see her submitting to (among others) rape, casual sex with a well-endowed stranger (Siffredi, naturally), regular S&M sessions with her boss (I'm sure the fact that she was a primary school teacher did not sit well with the French Educational authorities), voluntarily offering herself as a live patient for a group of apprentice gynecologist and finally being impregnated by her frigid boyfriend! The lengthy, meticulous and dispassionate S&M sequences are disconcerting in themselves but nothing quite prepares one for that abrupt, surreal and possibly heretical finale.
Review of Romance
