Love is the 3D sex movie; the one that describes itself as being made with "blood, sweat and tears"; the one that halfway through, just to aghast anyone who's not fully bought into the explicit film, features a giant stereoscopic penis ejaculating over the audience. Visceral doesn't cut it. But it's all anchored with an internalised, emotional story that stops this being two-plus hours of mere titillation. Murphy discovers that his ex-girlfriend Electra has been missing for the past few months and, while assessing his new life with the girl he cheated on her with and his new son, regresses into his memories of their relationship. Which, invariably, features a lot of f*cking. That's the jumping off point for the entire movie, leading to a dissection of memory, relationships and, when you get to the nitty gritty, sex that all comes together into beautiful, surprisingly touching, breath-taking movie that defies any smutty origins. Of course, being Gaspar Noé, that it's meticulous constructed should be obvious, but, like more unsavoury lengthy elements in the rest of his oeuvre, the lengthy sex bits likewise carry extreme thematic heft (he ain't no Lars Von Trier). Their placement in the narrative highlights the underlying feelings behind them, making the film something whose biggest effect is on your heart. Masterpiece. Read the full review here.
