Love by Gaspar Noé is not for prudish viewers. Ejaculations in 3D, we haven't seen that often in cinema.
Two years ago, the Golden Palm at Cannes went to Abdellatif Kechiche's La Vie d'Adèle. A beautiful love story that attracted some attention because of a long, unflattering love scene.
Soon after, a few more films surfaced that cared little for the taboo of openly showing real sex in cinema. In the refreshingly playful Feuchtgebiete, we see a couple of boys satisfying themselves over a pizza. And in the thriller L'Inconnu du lac, you didn't have to guess what happens at such a meeting place for gays.
This year at Cannes, there was another film that made even more noise with even more and more explicit sex scenes. Gaspar Noé's Love brutally opens with a long mutual masturbation that leaves nothing to the imagination. Noé (Seul contre tous, Irreversible), already not averse to confrontation, is resolutely beyond shame. A lifelong homage to sensual passion?
Yes, sex touches us deeply
So it is also allowed to be shown, with all the pleasure, lust and obsession that goes with it. "Our sexuality is what we are," Stacy Martin from Lars von Trier's sex essay Nymphomaniac once remarked. Sex is a primal force with joyous and dark sides, but at the same time one of the most ordinary things in life. In a commentary on Love, Noé states that he finds it ridiculous that everyone likes to make love, but that this should not be shown openly in a normal cinema film. For all its simplicity, it strikes me as a valid argument.
No, because it misses the mark
To be clear, this is not a revival of the porn wave that Deep Throat brought to cinemas in 1972. Love is less close-up than typical porn. On closer inspection, the sex scenes are also less abundant than all this attention to them might suggest. Incidentally, I'm sure Noé won't object that the images may cause some arousal in the viewer. Whether that is pleasurable or uncomfortable may be a matter of taste. But all those strong stimuli - even in the publicity - threaten to distract attention from what it is really about: a case, as tragic as it is banal, of overly romantic expectations, amorous stupidity and the regret that follows.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl, another recent film about a stormy sexual adventure, proves that without pontificating erections, it stays better balanced. Love thrusts directly into sex. Diary makes more work of what precedes it.
Yes, you really need to feel that craving
Admittedly, the male protagonist can quickly be dismissed as a sentimental crybaby, and on the face of it, this love story is also rather cliché. Man squanders his great love by getting the neighbour pregnant. But is that really what it's about? It is precisely because of the repetition and detailed portrayal that lust satisfaction takes on something desperate. People clinging to each other's bodies as if they were life preservers. The tragedy of yearning for the elusive paradise.
No, it's not about sex
Sex is just the symptom. The real disease is loneliness. That's what a lot of these candid films actually boil down to anyway. Loneliness, addiction, power relations, everything that comes into play in human relationships. A striking example is the deliberately unsettling Nymphomaniac, which is also about the struggle between body and mind and the inequality between men and women. There is a sanitised and an explicit version of Nymphomaniac. Interestingly, the addition of genitals in action makes no difference to the meaning or appreciation of the film. Von Trier did, however, pursue excellent marketing with it.
Yes, away with prudishness and sexism
Still, as Noé suggested, why should we be circumspect when lovemaking is on screen? Why are we allowed to see everything in film, but not just that one thing? Why are we extra accountable for it? Down with the prudery. Besides, for all its appreciation, isn't a film like The Diary of a Teenage Girl a tiny bit sexist by being less fussy about the girl's nudity than about her older lover's dick? Of that form of sexism, Love does not suffer at all. Liberating!
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