Love (Gaspar Noé)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki



And yes, that was the most SFW poster.

[Henry Gale]

Begins fairly irritating and tone-deaf (of the overt banality, horridly flat inner-head voice-over variety), slowly becomes genuinely engaging (mainly when it steps out of the protagonists head and focuses on basically anything other than him speaking), and eventually settles into a fairly transcendent groove, despite it not knowing exactly what it wants to coalesce as. I hate to use the word graphic because it has an air about it that makes it seem like it's depicting something ugly, but it's as vivid in portrayal of sex as any narrative film I can recall. And even if a fact like that isn't something particularly novel or unheard of in the internet age, it doesn't have to be, because it only needs to serve itself.

So the emphasis on the sex paired equally with the equally raw melodrama works very well. It's the many self-referential elements Noé includes that only complicate the thematics of it for me. The main character is an aspiring filmmaker with a miniature version of the Love Hotel from Enter The Void by his bed, he hides old romantic keepsakes in a VHS clamshell case for I Stand Alone, he names his son "Gaspar", there's a gallery owner named Noé (played by the man himself, in a beautifully hilarious wig), and the protagonist name is even Murphy, which is used for one loud, title card-assisted Murphy's Law reference, but Noé explained in the post Q&A was the last name he actually went by when he was younger because he didn't like his real one. And yet, it's a movie that's purely about the relationships at hand, and at least at first glance/viewing/current dissection, it feels more like an amusing distraction than something essential to the text.

It'll undoubtedly be stuck in my head for at least a few days, I'll think a lot more about it, and even watch it again sometime, but it is a mixed bag, and never reaches the consistent heights or distinct identity of his previous works. It's great, except when it isn't. It sucks, except when it's as good as anything I've seen this year. But when I do eventually re-watch it at home I'm gonna miss the audience-reaching 3D ejaculation.

(That 3D moment is really the only gimmicky, "cutesy", in-your-face one I can recall, and the rest is very well-utilized. It does mean Benoît Debie shooting digital for the first time I've seen, and that does noticeably rob the textures of the shots of their usual warmth and gorgeous grain with the shift from the celluloidal capturing of all his other recent work, which is among my favourite stuff around. His colour palettes and compositions, particularly with the added dimension's insistence on using various visual planes and depth of field, are still as top notch as ever.)

[Grouchy]

Wow, this has 40% in the Tomatometer? Just goes to show how obsolete the wank circle we call film criticism really is. This is the most amazing visual experience I've had this year, side to side with Mad Max. It shows a gentler side of Gaspar Noé after the assault on the senses that is Enter the Void. This one has a similar structure but a more lyrical, less disturbing approach. I see a lot of reviewers are focusing on the dialogue, which I don't think is bad at all - just simple and focused.

This must be watched on theaters and in 3D.

[Dukefrukem]

sadadsadasd

[Dukefrukem]

testestetstest

[Dukefrukem]

shot

[Ezee E]

Struggling with this movie. An hour in and not too interested in finishing.

[Ezee E]

Finished this. Ultimately, it's a chore to get through. The hypnotic effect that Noe can cast in his movies is here, albeit, not very long and only in small moments. Noe has a hard time actually convincing us that his characters are in love with each other. He's struggled with this in all his movies, and it's most apparent here when none of the actors have really had any acting experience (both actresses make their first performance).

What isn't a surprise is that Noe succeeds with his camera and sound. The soundtrack is one of the more appeasing of the year, most notably of his use of Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" during one of the lengthly sex scenes, Salem's "King Night", and a welcome back to Dirge's "Dirty Vegas."

What can be kind of laughable is that Noe throws his world into the movie four times. One with the use of his Love hotel as a diorama in his main character's bedroom. Two as "I Stand Alone's" VHS box contains drugs for his main character, #3 as the son (?) they have is named Gaspar, and four as he stars as the Art Gallery Director himself. lol.

[Spinal]

Struggling with this movie. An hour in and not too interested in finishing.

This was my experience too. I finally got through it. It made me question my past appreciation of Noé's other work. Dreadful acting. Dreadful dialogue. An eye roller of a scenario. When your lead character has a Salo poster hanging on the wall above his bed, I have to wonder if perhaps you're trying a little bit too hard. Mostly, I hated hated hated Karl Glusman, who's got to be one of the most off-putting leads I've ever seen in a major film.

[Skitch]

This may be Noe's most easily accessible film yet.

[Spinal]

This may be Noe's most easily accessible film yet.

Well, it doesn't have a shot of a real-time rape or an aborted fetus. So, I guess there's that.

[Skitch]

Well, it doesn't have a shot of a real-time rape or an aborted fetus. So, I guess there's that.

Exactly! I didn't leave the film feeling awful.