[filmcritic.com presents a review from guest writer Athan Bezaitis. You can find the review with full credits at http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/568a258d1888948788256824000a654a?OpenDocument
ROMANCE A film Review by Athan Bezaitis Copyright Athan Bezaitis 1999
It's not every day that you can see a well known porn star acting in serious cinema. Of course, ROMANCE is not really worthy of being called a serious film. While its theme of one woman's struggle to overcome sexual oppression is innovative, it lacks tact and fails miserably due to the crudity of its approach. I refuse to believe that this film is some sort of groundbreaking phenomenon that French audiences will appreciate because it's a brilliant "character study" -- and, as such, that American's will scoff at it. I saw the movie with two French grad students who both walked out of the film disappointed and visibly queasy.
Marie (Caroline Trousselard) is a depressed nymphomaniac school teacher stuck in a relationship in which she cannot arouse her lover. The whole story involves her searching throughout Paris for the fufillment that her asinine boyfriend denies her. She defiles her body in the process as she encounters different men who satisfy her deprived erotic needs. She is willing to take on everything and everybody: from a vile stranger on the her apartment stairway who prosteletyzes her for oral sex, to a dominating masochistic school principal, to porn star Rocco Siffredi (whose character admits he hasn't had sex in four months). Can you imagine what happens there?
The biggest problem with the film is not only its graphic (just about dragged-out with nothing substantial occurring. Case in point: the four sexual encounters take about fifteen minutes each, and any adult can be spared the explicit details, which fail to add any critical meaning. If we didn't want a plot we could have rented one of Rocco's other films.
Even Rocco's biggest fans will be disappointed, because the blue movie titan fails to satisfy.
Then again, I have to know whether or not that scene was real. If not, there were some pretty amazing special effects...
1 star (lowest rating) -- Christopher Null - cnull@mindspring.com - http://www.filmcritic.com Check out the G-Rex Personal Shopper at http://www.g-rex.com
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