Love (2015)

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

By the reviews that I've read on this page and others calling it just porn, I assume the movie had literally just sex. I was surprised to see that the even though the sex scenes are long, it's definitely not the whole movie, neither it feels like porn. The problem relays in the fact that I've seen porn with more content than this. More artistic, better edited. That should give you an idea of what type of film this is. The protagonist is insufferable. I hated him 5 minutes into the film. And we don't get to know the rest of the characters either, in consequence, you don't really care what happens to them. The performances are mediocre. At times it truly feels like an amateur project. The shots get repetitive and boring and the dialogues fall flat. This a good idea, let's show a relationship from a sexual point of view without censoring. I appreciated that but where's the real intimacy, the real feeling. I have no idea. Nymphomaniac did it. I haven't met anyone who has seen that movie and hasn't feel overwhelmed. There's emotion, pain, struggle. The main topic, of course, is different, but I think you get the point. Love is more than what you see here. Actually, love shouldn't be what you see here.

First of all. I'm a huge fan of Gaspar Noé, so my review may be biased somewhat by that. Still, this movie delves into subject matter very unlike Enter the Void, and differs greatly also in its flawless execution. There are many silent moments, as is Gaspar's style, but they aren't empty and vacuous, like in Enter the Void, meant to render in the viewer a sense of aimlessness and confusion, and they're not meant to give you a respite from the vibrant sexuality of the film either. Instead they suffuse exactly the tender sentiment Gaspar was seeking to meld into his project. The film is a tremendous achievement, his somatic style vibrates from the screen and seduces you into the physicality of love. You feel aroused, no doubt, but it's an enveloping arousal, not the two dimensional kind of appeal one would expect from a movie with this caliber of sexuality. No, this is four dimensional; indulgent and honest and raw and desperate and human. The spectacular performances by the relatively unknown actors deliver aching, intimate and haunting sensations. You're there with them. That's the director's touch and it's not easy to achieve. The story is very deep, its foreground tragedies very sharply felt and you're left sad, vulnerable, full of regret and yet also gratitude that you were able to experience love of that magnitude, with all its divine glory and cruelty without actually being stuck in the characters lives. And yet it was a just a movie. And yet it wasn't.

There's been discussion about whether there should be sex scenes in movies at all. There are those who claim that they are distracting, offer nothing to further the story and could be skipped and nothing would be missed. Sometimes they are outright obscene. I find myself on the opposing camp. I like my movies controversial, and I think movies shouldn't shy away from subject matter because it is 'risky'. Sex is a part of life, it's emotional and intense and important, so it makes sense that movies would delve into it.Now 'Love' is a movie that borders on pornography, that's how deeply it delves into the matter of sex. The plentiful sex scenes are reportedly unsimulated - meaning the actors actually really have sex on screen, which is enough for many to label it obscene. And obscene it is. The film is full of depravity, sexual lust, fetishes, and generally morally reprehensible behavior. So if you don't go for that kind of thing, you should steer clear of this movie.I saw a review of 'Love' calling it pretentious. I don't think the movie is pretentious so much as the main character himself is, spouting off about 2001: A Space Odyssey and how he's going to be a great director. He's not a very respectable person no matter how you look at it. He cheats on his girlfriend and when he has to take responsibility and raise a baby with his hook-up, he constantly pines for his days of fooling around and doing drugs. Actually, he never really stops doing drugs.The story - and the 'message' - of the movie is about how the young American film-maker idolizes French bohemian sexuality and freedom, but ends up getting sick of too much of it. But it's not a French movie and not an American one. It's simply a Gaspar Noé movie, and it shows. There was barely any script, no guidelines or rules in making the movie. It's the director's movie, completely focused on style and theme, color and composition and rhythm, largely disregarding story and even characterization. There are frequent short 'black-outs' all over the movie, which made me think that my copy was faulty somehow. The movie has a unique flow, it's nonchronological, following the thoughts and memories of a character suffering from a terrible hangover.I have to make a comparison to 'Blue Is The Warmest Color', which really is a French movie, also has a lengthy running time, and also features a whole lot of sex. That movie was emotional and relatable, it was like a look into a life that was really lived, and despite the controversial lesbian sex scenes it strangely had a lot of innocence in it. 'Love' is like the drug-drenched, depraved, delirious and destructive, nihilistic counterpart to that movie.

This was from the director of 'Irreversible'. This story was told in backwards. It opened with a married couple having sexual intercourse and after a phone call, the flashback rolls. Which begins from that point of the story where it stands to where it all began as per the film character who recalls all the events. Actually, it was impressive idea, not that reverse way storytelling, but how the characters were drawn. And then the story was very simple, like the film '9½ Weeks', the drama and the sex parts shared the remaining narration alternatively for like every 10-15 minutes.I wanted to like it, but not convinced with the blend between both the drama and sex scenes. They should have developed and blended them together better. Especially since the storytelling was reversified, one of the major plot holes is not solved or revealing what could have happened to that particular character on which this plot was developed. If you are not concerned about the storyline and looking for adult contents as in a film, not as a better porn film, then you might enjoy it.The other major issue was the length. Two hours long for an adult film means teasing and testing your patience. It should have been under 90 minutes, that would have speeded it up a bit. The actors were decent. The film poster was so hot, it will drag you to watch this film. But I would say not to expect big, either adult stuffs or from the dramatic segments. Within its frame, it delivered, but for me it was an average and a little below.4.5/10