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ROMANCE Send This Review to a Friend
One could tell that the audience with which I saw the French film "Romance" at the Toronto International Film Festival was exceedingly restless. When the protagonist took out her live-in boyfriend's penis and started to perform oral sex on him the sight was definitely unusual for a mainstream, non-porn film. By the time she had gotten involved with an older man in a bondage relationship--naturally she was the one bound and gagged--several women left the theater.
Writer-director Catherine Breillat has shown daring in using explicit sex, including more than I've already described, to explore women's sexual desires and insecurities reflected in the story of Marie (Caroline Ducey), who is frustrated because her lover Paul (Sagamore Stevenin) doesn't want to have sex with her. He's on a purity kick--until he's ready again. After making rejected overtures, including her oral best, she decides to look elsewhere, and thus begins her sexual journey to which we are privy.
The trouble is that Marie is boring. Paul is boring. The men she finds are boring. The dialogue is boring. So what we're left with is the explicitness and the pretentiousness of a director who sees depth in all of this. Yes, women's sexuality bears exploring, especially by a woman director. But not much is compelling when one doesn't care what the protagonist does or doesn't do--whether she likes being tied up or the dangerous ploy of accepting a sexual offer of a stranger. It's all well done enough, even to the point of casting well-endowed Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi to deliver what he presumably does best. But who really cares? A Trimark release.
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