Film review: Love
An ode to genitalia, vigorous rutting and the release of bodily fluids, Gaspar Noé’s Love is the polar opposite of Michael Haneke’s similarly titled Amour. For one, its two main characters are immensely unlikable: Instead of two octagenarians that have spent a lifetime together and are reaching the end of their lives, we have here a chronically oversexed American named Murphy (Karl Glusman) and the “love” of his life, Electra (Aomi Muyock), who satisfies him provided he is not already pounding away between someone else’s open legs.
Love has little to do with the intense emotions suggested by its title and is rather an examination, albeit superficial, of sexual obsession, with the filmmaker intent on showing the audience as many graphic details as possible, with Murphy’s tool often shooting his life essence — at one point directly in the direction of the viewer, who might be catching the film at one of its 3-D screenings. If this were exciting and not laughable, it may have qualified as pornography, but as things stand, this is much worse than most kinds of triple-X entertainment.
And then there is director Gaspar Noé’s masturbatory references to himself. Not only is Murphy’s son named “Gaspar,” but Murphy’s ex hooks up with an “artist” named Noé, played by — you guessed it — the director himself. These names are repeated often enough for us to recognize what Noé is up to, but we never get close to understanding why he is behaving like such a neophyte. Who, except the most amateur of filmmakers, would engage in such ill-conceived grandstanding?
To read the full review, please visit The Prague Post.
(Trailer screenshot from Monster Pictures/YouTube)
