Love interjects long, somewhat artful sex scenes with the 'tortured' story of Murphy and his long lost lover Electra, and the events that lead to their breakup. The sex scenes are hit and miss for me. Many of them are done really well, with a degree of taste but also sliminess that kept them entertaining. Having said that, by the end of the movie I was wishing they would stop. Director Gaspar Noé made a statement regarding Love, saying that he wanted to use iconography that pushed the bounds of cinema to rarely seen levels of sex and explicitness. The problem is, when the lead characters are so vapid and juvenile in their perception of what love is, the sex all seems very empty and I hate to say, mildly pornographic. It works for a little while, but when these scenes are being thrown at us for over 2 hours, it simply becomes a bore. Noé credits Stanley Kubrick's films as a great inspiration to him, and watching Love it is obvious that he was drawing heavily from films like Eyes Wide Shut. There is a scene in which Murphy and Electra visit a sex club that was particularly reminiscent of the secret society mansion scene is Eyes Wide Shut, without the masks and rituals of course. The score by Lawrence Schulz and John Carpenter was also very Kubrick-esque, and worked particularly well over the sex scenes. The music was definitely my favourite aspect of the film.
The film takes place in Paris, where Murphy is studying to be a film director and Electra is an aspiring artist (cliché much?) It is shot in the past and the present tense, with the present being filled with Murphy reflecting on and longing for his old life with Electra. We learn that due to his infidelity, he has gotten another woman pregnant. This woman is Omi, who engaged in a threesome with Murphy and Electra when they were together. At first I thought that Omi was going to be more of a main character, and that the story would veer in the direction of a love triangle, which could have been quite interesting. Instead, Noé used her more as a plot device to further Murphy's story arc, which I was never very invested in anyway.
The story of a tortured relationship, riddled with scandal, jealousy and infidelity is obviously a well trodden one, it has been done a million times. But nevertheless it is a good foundation for character building. In the case of Love, the predictable plot required one of two things, either really solid character development or a film that threw out the idea of meaning all together and focussed purely on exploitation and sensationalism. Instead, I feel like Noé tried too hard to walk the thin line between exploitation and a morally relevant story. The problem is, I saw both the central characters as immature, greedy, overly hedonistic and just not very interesting. Sure, their story is relatable. I think anyone who has been in a serious relationship understands the feelings of possession and jealously that come up frequently in Love. But just being relatable is not enough when the film also wants to be taken seriously or make some sort of moral statement about love. I've recently been reading a book which has changed my view on what love is, which might have impacted my views on this film. It basically convinced me that love is essentially a verb. It is something we do first, and feel second. Unconditional love to me is something that takes constant effort and attention in the face of difficulties and challenges. The kind of 'love' that is proposed in this film, and I guess the way many of us view it, is based more on feelings and desires. It is depicted as something that possesses us, makes us mean and neurotic, destined to end in crushing heartbreak. In Love we see this constantly. For instance when they are in the taxi after finding out they have both been cheating on each other. I actually like the way this scene was shot, it has great energy. Yet here we see how ugly this relationship has become, Murphy viciously spitting venomous insults at Electra and vice versa. In summation, I just didn't see any real depiction of love in Love, which is where it falls down for me. The film does a reasonable job of being emotive and intimate, but morally I find nothing to admire about the film or its characters. We see some regret in Murphy at the end of the film, but it still feels tinged by his selfishness and lust, rather than a realisation of what he did wrong.
In terms of cinematography, Love is just fine. The sex scenes contained by far the best shots visually, but lots of the other shots felt pretentious because of the content and dialogue that was being delivered within them. I enjoyed the long tracking shot following the two on their first meeting in a Paris park, but the dialogue between the two was so dreadful that I still ended up bored by the end of the scene. Overall I wasn't under or overwhelmed by Love visually. I certainly don't think it's boundary pushing, despite being slightly controversial upon release. The film premiered in 3D, which I guess might have enriched it somewhat, but to me it sounds more like a bit of a tack on to make up for the film's lack of originality. Personally I would have taken much, if not all of the dialogue out of Love. This might have made the emotion in it more powerful and clear-cut, as well as placed more emphasis on the music, but this is all hypothetical.
Love does not justify its 135 minute run-time. It is overly indulgent in almost every sense, with characters that failed to involve me in their story whatsoever. I think that Gaspar Noé should have focussed more on examining the dynamics of sex, rather than planting an undertone that suggests the film has something to say about true love, which frankly it doesn't in my mind. A small saving grace was the score, which wasn't absolutely spectacular but complimented the sex scenes well. The fact that the movie took me three sittings to get through says it all for me. I wouldn't recommend Love unless you have a certain taste for this kind of softcore cinema or have a lot of free time on your hands. One thing's for sure, I will not be watching it again.
Acting: 25
Narrative: 20
Visuals: 55
Music: 65
Overall: 41/100
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