Romance (2000, VHS)

Part of Chris Jarmick's Erotic Film W/O. Info on the W/O is here: http://www.epinions.com/content_234288680580 One of France's most revered and controversial directors, Catherine Breillat has been notorious for taking erotic films and notably sex to new, explicit heights. Films such as Une Vraie Jeune Fille (A Real Young Girl), 36 Fillette (36 Size Girls), Fat Girl, Sex is Comedy, and Anatomy of Hell pushed the boundaries of body image and sexuality as Breillat proved to be a very uncompromising director, particularly among her female directing peers. In 1999, Breillat released one of her...

Leave it to the French to make a movie like this! The French seem to have a knack for making movies about sex that are far more than mere soft-core parades, and now here s a movie about sex that is far more than a mere hard-core parade. I m talking about the film Romance, a film notorious for its scenes of genuine, hardcore sex normally found in the sorts of product found in the backroom of your video store, but which now are found in what appears very much like a typical, pretentious French art-house film. Anyone who has an aversion to any erect body part should not undertake in renting...

An ample volume of bared breasts and buttocks would indicate the Director intended this to be an erotic film. It's not. The not-so-"romantic" leads are irritating both as melodramatic, self-involved individuals, and as disinterested lovers. Their reasons for remaining together are non-existent. Neither appears to be capable of anything resembling affection or admiration of another. What constitutes "love" in this relationship is opaque to the viewer. In fact, one gets the impression of two sexually precocious pre-teens indulging in an overly complicated adult game. Eventually they grow bored,.

Posters for ROMANCE announce that the film is "the most sexually explicit film ever made", and excluding pornography, there's no way one cannot agree. The fully visible on-screen oral, vaginal and anal sex, as well as the presence of more male genitalia that a double issue of Playgirl, certainly make it some kind of a landmark. The film's director, Catherine Breillat, approaches her material with a frank honesty, portraying sexuality as a simple function of one woman's daily life, more the rule than the exception. For its bold, landmark steps in cinematic sexuality, it should be recognized....