AN AFFAIR OF LOVE (Une Liaison Pornographique)
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Fine Line Features Director: Frederic Fonteyne Writer: Philippe Blasband Cast: Nathalie Baye, Sergi Lopez
Since French pictures features more talk, generally, than those of other nationalities, it sure helps to know the language. Subtitles are functional, of course, but subtleties are lost. To prove this (unscientifically) I noted which members of the audience seated around me at the French Institute Alliance Francais were speaking the language taught by the institute and which were conversing in plain old English. The former group laughed quite a bit more throughout the brief, 80 minutes "An Affair of Love," a picture which had formerly been entitled "A Pornographic Affair." When one of the officials of FIAF spoke briefly to introduce the picture, she said, "This is not a pornographic film," the sophisticated audience uttered an ironic "awwww." Though the movie centers on sex, this could be the least pornographic film you're likely to see this year, almost to such an extent that if just one scene were cut, a PG-13 rating would be in order.
First shown in the U.S. at the New Directors/New Films festival at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the picture has a history. At the Venice Film Festival, Nathalie Baye won best actress for her performance--which proves only that one does not have to come on like a raging bull, Hollywood style, to achieve a dramatic performance. While her accomplishment here has real merit in that the slightest tic or movement of the eye or nervous gesture communicates books about her feelings, the picture itself is pretentious. Ms. Baye and Sergi Lopez, who perform in the roles of "Her" and "Him" respectively, do a lot more behind closed doors than the Belgian-born director Frederic Fonteyne shows us, but boy can they chatter.
Executed in the format of a he-said-she-said mockumentary, the story gets its impetus from an listing that a woman (Nathalie Baye) places asking for a man who can fill a sexual fantasy of hers. A man (Barcelona-born Sergi Lopez) answers the ad, counting on a one-night stand. They meet in a cafe, talk for bit with inevitable nervousness, and head for a hotel around the corner which she had booked in advance. The doors close and we in the audience see nothing. We never do learn of the fantasy and in a closing interview, the man tells the interrogator that even if he were tortured, he would not reveal what the fantasy was. Why? Who knows? Who cares? By the time the film ends, we know as much about these characters as they learn about each other during the months in which they meet every Thursday--which is to say very little. We never learn where they live because she repeatedly refuses to accept a lift from her Romeo. We never learn their names. We know only that at one point, when they decide to have sex the "normal" way (and we do see them going at it but discreetly, with the woman finding an excuse to cover both completely with a sheet), she decides that she loves him. What happens after she makes this confession is so odd that the audience can scarcely help concluding that the whole darn episode is affected.
One online critic from Dublin with a more positive view tells his readers "the honesty of the writing, as it takes the two characters through a range of recognisable emotions and personal foibles which consistently ring true, is matched by the openness and honesty of the central performances." If this is an honest relationship, give me deviousness. A woman confesses her love and a man more or less goes along, and you'd think that they'd introduce themselves. Such a conclusion is apparently not arty enough for scripter Philippe Blasband in the Iranian-born writer's second feature film done in collaboration with director Fonteyne.
Rated R. Running time: 80 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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