Romance

Starring: Caroline Ducey, Sagamore Stvenin Director: Catherine Breillat Original UK Premiere: 1999 Dvd Release: 10th April, 2000 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Subtitled, Region 2 Encoding Subtitled In: English

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Romance is a 1999 French movie written & directed by Catherine Breillat. It stars Caroline Ducey, pornography actor Rocco Siffredi, Sagamore Stevenin & François Berleand. It contains several sex scenes that appear to have been unsimulated. Marie is a schoolteacher who is deeply in love with her husband who does not have sex with her. She explores increasingly risky sexual encounters with other men, including a BDSM relationship with a member of staff who works at the same school. The film claims to be artistic & so may be seen as different from ordinary pornography. It was shown in mainstream cinemas in Europe. In the U,S. the original version is unrated & an edited version received an R rating. In March 2004, the unedited film was broadcast late at night on German public TV, leading to some protests.

Briefly notorious around the time of its release for being just about the most sexually explicit art-house film to be passed uncut by the British Board of Film Classification , Romance is strong stuff, as forebodingly enigmatic as it is confrontational. Schoolteacher Marie lives with her boyfriend Paul , a vapid male model. When he refuses to have sex with her anymore she seeks out loveless couplings with, among others, an Italian widower & her headmaster , who introduces her to bondage. Maries abject, monotonous voiceover tartly undercuts any potential titillation the images might offer . With all the careful, neutral-coloured tailoring & immaculately whitened set dressing, its a bit like a film edition of Elle Interiors as edited by Anaïs Nin. For all that, you have to admire director Catherine Breillats willingness to take risks, & certainly Romance potentially risks boring as many readers as it shocks others. No less intrepid is Ducey, literally exposing herself in a way few actresses would dare. Whether the film really opens up & interrogates the nature of female sexuality, Breillats stated aim, is debatable, but theres no doubting the films visceral impact.,

Catherine Breillat is a filmmaker & director based in Paris. She is known not only for her documentary filmwork focusing on sexuality, gender trouble & sibling rivalry, but also for her best-selling novels. Catherine Breillat is also a professor of auteur cinema at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where she conducts a summer workshop. Ms. Breillat is somewhat controversial for her explicit depiction of sexuality. In 1999 she cast the pornstar Rocco Siffredi in Romance.

Editors Choice: Anatomy Of Hell, Romance, Sex Is Comedy, View DVDology

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