Breillot: Porn to be Wild

Do you like thinking about libido? Are you ashamed because all the movies you watch star Ron Jeremy? Do you feel cool when you're watching an artsy movie from France? Look no further.

Romance, directed by Catherine Breillat, promises to be among the most controversial films released this fall. The theme is sexual desire, illustrated by trs anatomical angles: fellatio, bondage and domination and even childbirth. If you hated the censorship in Eyes Wide Shut, you'll get quite an eyeful and earful here.

Despite the rampant nudity, this is no horny-male flick. Breillat focuses on the frustrations of Marie (Caroline Ducey). Romance is the story of her search for both sexual and emotional satisfaction. Marie looks like a sweet young thing, but that's where it ends. Marie wades through three lovers. First is Paul (Sagamore Stevenin), her male model boyfriend, who is annoyed by Marie's pleas for more sex and wishes she would just go to sleep instead of trying to take off his shorts. After one fruitless night, the sex-starved Marie sneaks off to a bar and picks up Paolo, played by Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi. They like each other; the camera likes their bodies. He scores and she scores. End of affair.

Marie finally finds her savior in Robert (Francois Berleand), the school principal at the elementary school where she teaches eager, innocent children the mornings after her nights of depravity. Although he's a troll compared to Paul and Paolo, Robert has more thoughtful things to say, takes Marie to romantic dinners--and introduces her to S&M. "Shall I dominate you?" he croons considerately before he ties her up at an excruciatingly slow pace.

More ironies abound. Marie is a woman who looks like a sweet and frail schoolteacher but willingly accepts a lewd offer from a stranger, fantasizes about working in a headless whore factory, and derives visceral pleasure in gynocological exams. While reminiscent of Luis Bunuel's Belle du Jour, concerning the kinky desires of an angelic Gallic heroine, Breillat's film is less mysterious but considerably more graphic and disturbing.

Breillat is no stranger to controversy. At age 17, she began by authoring a banned novel and proceeded to make several films exploring sex. She wrote Romance intending to challenge common conventions of feminine desire. The abundant analyzing is obvious--a clear mark of a "woman's" movie. We hear all of Marie's thoughts in voice-overs la Kevin in "The Wonder Years." Of course, the issues at stake are more perverse. "They say a man who screws a woman honors her," we hear after Paul rebuffs her advances. Later, she observes, "Women are the victims men need for atonement" and "Love is dumb--it's just a power trip." Perhaps Breillat wanted to instill some intellectual momentum by exposing us to Marie's inner musings. The voiceovers awkwardly drive the slow, slow scenes. Ducey's throaty voice (amplified by French gutturals) can be irritating as she incessantly harps about her appetite for sensual stimulation. Sometimes she should just shut up and let the rest of us absorb the atmosphere.

Otherwise, Ducey is excellent in looking disconnected and dispirited for the entire duration of the film, as if she's trying to rise from the dead. And she still seems like a zombie at the end, despite giving birth to a new life. She has divorced her personality from her body, and it shows in her vacant gazes.

Some might construe Marie as a nymphomaniac who needs to do the nasty several different ways to recharge her batteries. Were it not for Marie's voiceovers, the film would appear to be more about different types of sex than different types of love. Yet it's difficult to view Breillat's work as pornographic, because it thinks too much and projects an entertainingly cynical attitude towards the act, In many ways this looks like one of those hazy foreign films with lots of talk and no plot. But provocative fantasies and bitter narration drive out all the mundane, leaving not hot sex, but one weird, cold movie. Brrr.