Love, Dir. Gaspar Noé, France/Belgium, 2015, 141 mins, French with English subtitles
Released in 2015, Gaspar Noé’s ambitious fourth feature follows Murphy, a young American filmmaker who wakes up on New Year's Day to a frantic phone call. His ex-girlfriend, a Parisian artist named Electra, has been missing for months and her mother fears the worst. Over the course of a long, rainy day, Murphy finds himself alone, rueing his new domesticity and reminiscing about the greatest love affair of his life – the two years he spent with Electra.
Love has attracted acclaim for Benoît Debie’s masterful cinematography, and controversy for its unsimulated sex scenes filmed in 3D, including one shot of semen spurting at the camera. But the Argentine director also explores the emotional dimensions of romantic relationships, particularly how sex can dominate the way people connect and how deceit and hypocrisy become part of our most intimate acts. Love is a burning, passionate story, full of promises, games, excesses and mistakes.