CANNES, France—One might think that attendees at the recent Cannes Film Festival would be used to seeing a little hardcore in the festival offerings. After all, they'd been treated to Catherine Breillat's films Romance (1999) and Anatomie de L'enfer (Anatomy of Hell) (2003), in both of which adult star Rocco Siffredi had hardcore sex, as well as 2002's The Brown Bunny, which featured a blowjob by Chloe Sevigny on director Vincent Gallo, and 2013's Palm d'Or-winning Blue Is The Warmest Color, which featured several lesbian scenes. And then there's Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac 1 & 2, where several performers and/or their body doubles performed a number of hardcore sexual acts.
So it was disappointing to hear that several critics walked out on the (midnight) press screening of Argentinian director Gaspar Noé's Love in 3D (not to be confused with 1972's Love in 3D) at Cannes, though Variety reported that the remaining viewers "deliver[ed] a thunderous standing ovation" after the movie ended, and other sources reported that a brawl broke out when a large group of would-be attendees tried to enter the standing-room-only venue. After all, how often does one get to see an actor ejaculating directly at the camera in 3D?
Or maybe that's what put the walkouts off. Indeed, Eric Kohn, in his review for Indiewire, dubbed the film, "Both eager to please and relentlessly underwhelming," adding, "Love doesn’t even manage to do much with the 3D gimmick that boosted its profile long before its completion. Noé exploits the device just once with the inevitable money (cum) shot of a larger-than-life penis blowing its load straight at the lens."
Actually, Noé did not originally intend for the film to be shot in 3D, though he was aware that a couple of years ago, some critic said, "I bet his next film is going to be in 3D." But it wasn't until three weeks before filming began that Noé decided to go for the depth—just about the time that he found out that the French government has state subsidies specifically set up for those working in the 3D genre.
Even so, Noé stated that, "There's something childish about 3D," adding, lest someone think his use of "childish" was a put-down, "It's like a game. It's hard to beat."
The plot of the movie is fairly simple: "Love tells the story of the disintegration of the relationship between Murphy (Karl Glusman), an American ex-pat in Paris, and his artist girlfriend Electra (Aomi Muyock) after they decide to bring a third person, Omi (Klara Kristin), into their bed," The Guardian (UK) wrote.
One of the few interviews Noé granted regarding the film was with Indiewire's Diana Drumm, in which he denied that Love "transgressed" (Oxford American Dictionary: "broke a rule or law, or went beyond a limitation") any more than, for instance, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom or The Decameron, or Luis Bunuel's Viridiana or Diary of a Chambermaid.
"Many have gone this way, only I used a small 3D camera," Noé told Drumm, adding, "I made a film about life. Why not address these aspects? They're part of the most wonderful moments of a person's life … I was making a film about love; it wasn't a film about Swiss banks or Scientology. The film is called Love, so that's what's onscreen."
Noé said he expected the film to be banned for those under 16, though given the choice of what ages could see it, he was on the fence whether the minimum age should be 16 or 12—"or whether there should be any ban at all as there's nothing nasty in the film, or at least to his mind," Drumm summarized.
Noé, however, seemed unfamiliar with the American adult industry—or maybe it was just that he was familiar with how many adult theaters have closed over the past couple of decades. In any case, "The movie could never have been done in America," he said. In Europe, however, he opined, people are more "open-minded" about sex scenes. "Americans, when it comes to film distribution, can be pretty square."
But Love will open in 60 or so theaters in France on July 15, and will be released unrated in the U.S., hopefully in its original CinemaScope, by L.A.-based Alchemy (formerly Millennium Entertainment) in 25 theaters, though no dates have yet been announced. It is then expected to be available in VOD, and hopefully 3D Blu-ray as well. However, Alchemy would do well not to follow the lead of Magnolia Home Entertainment, which released both parts of Nymphomaniac on DVD without any 2257 label or warnings, after a similarly illegal unlabeled showing earlier in theaters.
