Review of Love (2015) by Ricardo A — 27 Dec 2015

I think I can safely say that from this day forth, I am done with Gaspar Noe. The controversial film maker has certainly made an impact on the indie film scene, with his extremely brutal Irreversible and demented Enter The Void, and here he decides to go one further, crafting a 3D erotic drama that only highlights the film makers inability to craft a powerful and meaningful experience, which many film snobs, who dont know what they are talking about, will no doubt scoff in his exploitation, lapping it up as brave and unflinching, its neither, its boring and slightly offensive.

Love is the story of a young American film student living in Paris, stuck in a troubled relationship, with a child that appears to be his sole reason for staying in the dead beat corner he has backed himself into.

On New Years day, he is awoken by his ex girlfriends mother, she is worried for her daughter, a woman he hasnt seen in some time, but is almost certainly the reason for her derailment. This causes him to reflect on his time in Paris and what we get is a 2 hour, sex filled romp, with as many cheap and nasty moments flung at your face (literally as the film is bewilderingly shot in 3D), as Noe can possibly muster.

It's a horrid affair, Love's characters are stale and detestable, there is no one person, voice of reason or otherwise, throughout the entire films run time. Our 3 lead characters suffer from lazy writing and some really rubbish performances, with their sole crowning moment being the confidence to perform the constant sex scenes Noe throws their way.

The script is sordid and full of intentional referencing, Noe seems to think that not only are his ramblings gospel, but his constant throw backs and mentions of better ground braking films, only highlight the film maker as being desperate and boring.

Then we have the sex, which lets be honest the films main draw is placed on. It's graphic, pornographic and in some instances stupid, the film certainly does have the occasional erotic moment and I am completely fine with its inclusion, but more often than not its boring, becoming merely a motion or an act, with its over exposure sucking all the soul from it.

This yet again goes to show that Noe believes that constantly having explicit sex is the only way to achieve an erotic reaction, when the truth is, less is more and a little imagination goes a long way.

Love never visually flourishes, it has odd moments of inspiration here and there, but its style and vision always feel out of touch and slightly forced. Noe has always provided dizzying visuals, but Love is extremely stripped back and bland.

Despite all this, Love did hold my attention for its stupid length, and although I never enjoyed or engaged fully with the film on a meaningful level, I found myself eager to see just where the film wanted to end up, it was like watching a drunken argument between friends, stupid and pointless, but with a slight air of intrigue.

Love will no doubt have a small amount of people singing its praises and that's fine, however it only takes a moment of closer inspection to realize he is over reaching just to get a reaction.