Love (2015)

Director: Gaspar Noé
Writer: Gaspar Noé
Starring: Aomi Muyock, Klara Kristin, Karl Glusman, Benoît Debie, Vincent Maraval, Ugo Fox

Here's what Gaspar Noe's latest film, Love, isn't: It is not a porn film. This should be painfully obvious to anyone who has actually seen a porn film. It is not an exploitation film. This should also be obvious because exploitation films do not waste time deconstructing and analyzing intimate relationships. It isn't a pointless film either.

Much like Noe's Irreversible, which also left a lot of people fuming, Love has a rather unconventional narrative structure. It begins in the past and constantly jumps forward and back until it eventually settles down in the present. The chronology of the events, however, isn't difficult to follow. On the contrary, this way it is actually a lot easier to see the crucial ups and downs in the main protagonist's life.

His name is Murphy (Karl Glusman) and he is a young American who is studying film in Paris. Here he has fallen in love with Electra (Aomi Muyock), a beautiful French girl who also tells him that she loves him. When they are together and make love, they seem to connect in a way only two people who were meant to be together can. Their bond seems so strong that they share everything, even their most intimate desires.

One such desire, however, is the reason why Murphy loses Electra. They have a threesome with another girl, Omi (Klara Kristin), who later on replaces Electra. The new relationship is frustrating and awkward, but it is impossible to erase from Murphy and Omi's lives because after Electra's departure they become parents. A lot of the film is dedicated to Murphy's struggle to come to terms with the reality of the situation while revisiting past events and trying to reassess their significance.

There is simplicity and directness in the film that a lot of people will likely find off-putting. Many of its major points are delivered through long and explicit lovemaking scenes, not through elaborate conversations. This does make the film look like an unconventional experiment in which the sex is essentially used as a litmus test to reveal the true nature of love.

But how does one define love? And is there a "right" way to experience it?

One could come up with some fairly straightforward answers to these questions if one looks at older romantic films in which men and women boldly confess how they feel about each other and always seem in total control of their bodies. Similar answers can be found even in very recent films.

Noe's film does not attempt to define – or, if one believes that previous films have already done so, redefine – love. It simply shows how it happens, how it is consumed by young people who are convinced that they are experiencing it, and how easy it is to confuse it with lust.

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