Romance

Marie (Caroline Ducey) is a malcontent with justification – her model boyfriend (Sagamore Stevenin) doesn't want to make love, he doesn't even want sex. Marie uses this rejection as a basis for a rather dispassionate excursion to the wild side, picking up Italian porn super-star Rocco Siffredi for rather obvious reasons, and indulging in a bit of bondage with the principal at the school where she teaches... he's a man who has great confidence about his success with women.

This is a wordy, obtuse film of obviously serious if rather ponderous intent that does certainly push the boundaries of representations of sex on screen. But far from being titillating in any way the sex is dealt with so dispassionately – it's as if Marie is doing a research project – that while you may be confronted by some scenes, it's seems to be all in the cause of science. Marie doesn't seem to enjoy herself at all, she's completely self-absorbed, and rather irritating. She reminded me of many a Rohmer heroine.

But while you may be one of many people who would choose not to see Romance, it's a strike for the democratic rights of the few intellectually curious cinema-goers in this country that the Classification Review Board was sensibly willing to give it an R certificate after it had been refused classification by the OFLC.