It starts off like an ill-informed parody of an art film (two miserable lovers trading accusations, in and out of their antiseptic white-on-white bedroom, all the day long), and it only really deviates when it crosses over cautiously, decorously, just a step or two, into the realm of hardcore pornography. The cross-over comes complete with the customary absence of verisimilitude, as the stifled heroine spreads her wings (and legs) with a casual pickup in a bar, an anonymous accoster in the street (his successful come-on: "Twenty bucks just to eat you"), and her bondage-happy boss. What she lacks in credible motivation she more than makes up in apologia, self-analysis, philosophy, idle speculation, and random comment, often in voice-over ("Why do men who disgust us understand us better than those who appeal to us?"), but sometimes right out loud ("A thin cock isn't noble"). Because the lead actress, the scrawny but sensual Caroline Ducey, is an unknown, and because her most uninhibited partner, the saucer-eyed Rocco Siffredi, is a workhorse in the Italian porn industry, the movie could hardly be expected to cause much of a stir in the States. (This is not Tom and Nicole, after all, and the average American moviegoer is probably a little hazy on the distinction between a French actress and a prostitute.) Because, too, the writer-director is a woman, Catherine Breillat, some of the established battle lines in the smut wars would need to be re-drawn. More simply: who the hell cares? (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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