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Romance
1999 Drama / Romance
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Summary
A young schoolteacher, Marie, is deeply in love with her boyfriend, Paul, a male model
who is often away from home. However, whilst Paul also loves her, he shows her no
intimacy and has little interest in making love to her. Frustrated, Marie has a
one-night stand with an Italian she meets in a bar and then starts to have sad-masochistic
sex sessions with her headmaster. As she is driven further to extremes of sexual
behaviour, Marie undergoes a dramatic transformation, and Paul soon becomes expendable...
Critique
Romance is a daring attempt by provocative novelist-director Catherine Breillat
to portray the need for sexual fulfilment from the perspective of a young woman locked
in a passionless relationship. There are obvious parallels with Luis Buñuel’s
1967 film Belle du Jour,
and the film certainly has its share of surrealist fantasy. However, Romance
is a much darker film, focussed entirely on the thoughts and experiences of the central
character, who is pushed, by forces she cannot control, to increasingly dangerous sexual
practices.
Catherine Breillat’s previous films (notably the controversial 36 fillette) have a noticeable preoccupation with female sexuality, but Romance is far more explicit, and apparently has no qualms about crossing the line into hardcore pornography. The film’s commercial success probably had more to do with its graphic images of masturbation, oral sex and sadomasochism than to its artistic content. (The film certainly makes good use of Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi.) If anything, these explicitly pornographic excesses weaken the film’s very powerful underlying message and will probably alienate those cinema-goers who are likely to appreciate Breillat’s point of view. © James Travers 2001 Write a review for this film... |
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