The Sexiest Movie Never Made

Little matters whether Gaspar Noe's French drama "Love" (2015) is a porno-flick or a tasteful porno-flick. It isn't just about the sex in its 135 minutes, okay? But a dangerous menage a trois, unspooling creamily lit bodies into dance-like sculptures as they copulate and fall away like all doomed-to-fail relationships. Sorta.

I've never watched a Gaspar Noe movie for the same reason I've never heard about him. But a quick search dredged up numerous results of how, beside the underground director's previous films (i.e. Irreversible, Enter the Void), "Love" was bore, a letdown, a beautiful hazy dream that's also disappointingly softcore- for a movie that pronounced itself hardcore with 3D come-flying stunts by actor Karl Glusman's penis. Gaspar Noe is second to Lars Von Trier, after the latter got banned from Cannes for being a Nazi sympathizer. What both men have in common, however, is the titular "enfant terrible" title they share of in cinema. Misfits don't make blockbusters- they make artful underdog films like "Love", for fans.

Thusly, my virgin experience at Noe's titillating melodrama.

Within 30 minutes into the intimate space Noe staged,  I was stupefied, amused, empathetic, and- also- very bored. While not all at once, I was delighted by the unsuspecting intro of watching two people whacking each other off. There, naked, Murphy (Klusman) has a finger in his later-known girlfriend Electra (Aomi Muyock), who's returning the favor as she holds onto his penis like a crutch. But unlike the erotically charged Ang Lee breakthrough, "Lust, Caution", "Love" couldn't save itself from becoming a laughable morass, even after an hour into what out and out sex only the French can perform without making one feel molested just watching.

Of course, "Love" should have been a serious movie. The takeaway at the end is a tragedy of a couple's misguided trust in each other. Murphy plays a callous role in manhood's woes, and Electra is a stunning femme fatale with problems only enigmatic female characters possess (which isn't very much). Where they fortify their relationship, albeit the messes, is in the hot sex they often share. Until the threesome with their neighbor Omi (Klara Kristin), which led to the cheating, and a baby born out of wedlock, watching Murphy and Electra pre-break in flashbacks was like watching two foolhardy teenagers in love profess an eternity: A shallow, regrettable experience.

Why did I submit myself to a long, tepid movie laden with depressive monologues and full-frontal private parts sliding off the screen like a Gustave Courbet painting? For the art? If only, when all I felt in the merits lost- Benoit Debie has staged remarkable love scenes here, especially in the bordello glow of Murphy's bedroom- was a sense of restlessness. Who knew sex could be boring? Watching "Love" was like watching strangers getting it on in their Parisian apartments through a peephole. And without any depth, the characters quickly became flat and stale, when they should've been as deep and total as their thickets of pubic hair.

Yes, I definitely watched it for the sex. No shame.