October 7–14, 1999

movie shorts

Romance

recommended

by Cindy Fuchs

What are the limits on sex in non-porn movies? Is there any agreement on what’s OK to show and what’s not? Hair gel jokes aside, so-called explicit imagery tends to evoke moral and legal consternation in the U.S. So it’s to be expected that Romance, the new film by French feminist director Catherine Breillat, is generating more discussion about its shots of genitals than its narrative or thematic points. Still, the movie really isn’t about erotic arousal or exploitation. In fact, it is, as its title suggests, about romance, or more precisely the myths, disappointments and power dynamics that shape it.

The first scenes lay out an impeccably commercial fantasy. A young male model — looking stereotypically remote and refined — poses for the camera. His pale, pretty girlfriend of three months looks on as his flawless face is made up and he’s adorned with a lithe female model. The girlfriend, Marie (Caroline Ducey), appears both wistful and proud, even a little awed, as she clutches a clipboard to her thin chest.

That evening, Marie tries to seduce Paul (Sagamore Stevenin), but he looks as aloof as he did on the set, and pushes her away, gently. Playing the good girl, she attempts a blowjob, but again Paul puts her off, using the standard reason for sexual disinterest: It’s him, not her. Vulnerable, self-doubting and maybe in love, Marie is devastated.

The film takes Marie’s devastation seriously, following her efforts to find a suitable carnal and/or amorous replacement for her noncommunicative and selfish beau. She finds temporary solace in the arms of the experienced but boring Paolo (international porn star Rocco Siffredi, star of the "Buttman" series), then turns to Robert (Francois Berleand), the headmaster at the grade school where she teaches. Readily admitting that he’s ugly, as if this earns him extra points, Robert boasts about the many lovers he’s had. According to Robert, he knows how to please women, to open up new horizons and push them on into some version of ecstasy.

To demonstrate, he introduces Marie to bondage. He hooks her up to a gizmo in his apartment, then gags her and bends her arms into uncomfortable positions. At first she’s vaguely scared and titillated by his attentive aggression, then she begins to sob. Robert takes her down from the apparatus, soothes her and invites her back for more. This, it seems, is interesting to Marie, who does come back and who finds more possibilities for abuse in an anonymous, violent sexual encounter on the back stairway in her apartment building.

While Marie’s adventures might be understood equally as her vengeance against Paul and her investigation of her own sexuality, the end result is her punishing herself. Marie’s obvious distress, her tears and bruises, make her look like a woman who doesn’t know what she wants, so hurt by her man she can only destroy herself to get back at him.

But the film is more complex and unsettling than this. It’s clear that she is "developing" while her men are left by the film’s emotional wayside, even if such maturity comes at a considerable price. Her insecure clumsiness gives way to a kind of boldness, discovered in her violation and grief. It might be that the movie is arguing that there is no way to imagine female desire (read: heterosexual female desire) outside of "patriarchy." And that might be a tragic and painful conclusion.

Then again, it’s possible that the film is one long joke on exactly that conclusion. The power of this woman comes not in her easily consumed beauty, her conformity to some mass-marketed ideal, but from another frightening ideal: her body’s "mysterious" capacity to give birth. The finale, which hinges on that ability, is alarming because of its ambiguity: Is Marie, in her "achievement" (which I can’t give away exactly), a monster or a madonna? It’s hard to tell whether this means more romance or its death.