LOVE
France, 2014, 135 minutes, Colour.
Aomi Muyock, Karl Glusman, Klara Kristin.
Directed by Gaspar Noe.
Gaspar Noe, originally from Argentina, has made a number of films in France, usually with sexual themes, many of them quite explicit. He made an impact with Irreversible, with Vincent Cassell and Monica Bellucci, a film about violation and rape, which played in reverse chronological order. He also drew on the Tibetan Book of the Dead for his rather pessimistic Japanese story of nightlife and clubs, Into the Void.
His film, Love, runs for 135 minutes, an excessive length for watching such characters and their behaviour. It was also filmed in 3-D, having some rather exploitative sexual moments, close-ups and in the audience’s face.
As regards plot, the film is fairly slight. It requires audience attention because it does not unfold chronologically and the audience is always challenged (with the help of the central character sometimes bearded, sometimes not) to appreciate which phase of the character’s life we are in.
He is Murphy, an American, living in Paris, studying film, ambitious to be a filmmaker. However, the actor, Karl Glusman, is not a sufficiently strong screen presence here to make the character interesting or convincing. He is in a relationship with his girlfriend, Omi (Klara Kristin), and they have a young son. As we go back into Murphy’s life, we learned that he had a very impulsive girlfriend, Electra (Aomi Muyock), girl about town, sexually active and adept – with the audience seeing many, many examples of this. She is highly emotional, moves in an art world, goes to clubs, becomes involved sexually with a gallery of men plus a threesome with Murphy and Omi, much to the aggravation of Murphy. On the rebound, he has an affair with Omi and she becomes pregnant. It soon becomes very clear that he can barely tolerate Omi although he loves his son.
He spends a lot of time reminiscing about his relationship with Electra which is vividly dramatised. In the present, her mother has telephoned him a number of times, concerned about the disappearance of her daughter and fearing that she has killed herself.
It could be argued that this is a serious film exploring sexuality without any limitations, using explicit action (as in Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs or in some films of Catherine Breillat). Noe tests limits of explicit sexual activity and censorship. The film is not so interesting in itself to warrant the length or the demands on audience attention. Which makes it a cinema oddity.
