American Translation

This movie shows a lot of skin. I'm not telling you this to get you to see this movie (there's plenty of other movies that will fulfill that and might be more interesting than this one), but just in case you don't like the fact or don't want to see that in a movie. Apart from that, this is much more then the skin you are going to see.

The movie is a disturbing drama. A movie that does not care if you like it's main character (I'm almost certain it wants you to hate him), but has an interesting journey to follow. Our main guy acts like he does, because he can. Should the main female character behave differently though? It's a tough movie and it might not be to everyones taste. Can't really recommend it, but if you like weird movies, then try it (I liked it, despite its flaws).

"Chris" (Pierre Perrier) is handsome, tousled, young Frenchman with a penchant for sex - man, woman (probably chihuahua too if given the opportunity)... He meets "Aurora" (Lizzie Brocheré) - a young Franco-American girl and they set off travelling around rural France. Snag is, "Chris" has a bit of an asphyxiation fetish - and that leads to fatal results! As they continue to criss-cross their country in their camper van, their antics naturally attract the attention of the Sûreté! At times it is more erotic than sexy; and though there is nudity there is very little sex - it's more provocative than demonstrative, and that sometimes works. The problem is that neither character elicited any kind of emotion at all from me; and the gradual corruption of "Aurore" just lacked credibility. It is really very soft, kinky, porn with a theme that is rather basically photographed and uninterestingly self-destructive.

It's a disgusting movie, where are no sense and no art. It reminded me of old and good film "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" of 86 th year with Michael Rooker, where were all what you need, real story, interesting plot, charismatic and brutal main character, good acting and scaring tension. In "American Translation" there is nothing similar. On a screen I just saw the stupid and revolting lovers who doing nothing except murder and sex, they have no motivation, no reason for that, just they are bored. They are much talking about love but they didn't love each other really. They are unfeeling and blind for each other and for me such characters not interesting. I don't know why and for whom made this film.

This film is not for everyone, but for certain guys like me it is everything. And I'm talking orgasm time. I think it's safe to say that 99% of the people in the world will not get this film, but for the 1% of us who do this film is something else - not only a work of art but arousing as well. It deals with a subject that is known only to a very small group of guys who cultivate it as much as they can within safe and sane boundaries. Some guys alas fall off the edge and end up in very dire circumstances. The newspapers are full of these stories. The cops just look the other way. They've seen it before and they will see it again. The very core of man's nature is dark and sinister and the male lead in this film demonstrates that to a degree that is shocking, but also, a turn-on, for those of us consumed with dark and sinister sexual fantasies.

I'm not a big fan of French director/actor Jean-Marc Barr who co-directed this and has a supporting role. He is somewhat of an acolyte of Lars Von Trier, but he actually somewhat deserves the criticism that various ignorami are always making about Von Trier and other Euro "arthouse" director. His films are rather pretentious and he does to some extent try to pass off porn as art.

This movie about a naive young girl who falls in love with a bisexual hustler and serial killer may be a little pretentious in that it owes an obvious debt to the Jean-Luc Goddard French classic "Breathless". It's definitely heavy on the sex. Barr-regular Pierre Perrier is one of the prettiest pretty-boys in the land of wine of truffles. He's not especially believable as vicious serial killer, but he would probably be a great cellmate if you were doing life in prison. Lizzy Brochere is a little more talented and bilingual and she really made an impression (her beauteous bare butt especially)when she appeared on American TV in the second season of "American Horror Story". I don't know which of these two has more nude scenes, but probably Perrier. The most memorable might be when HE gives HER a long lapdance and you can see why Barr also prominently cast him in his "arty" hardcore porn film "Sexual Chronicles of a French Family" (unfortunately, he couldn't get Brochere, but it was probably better for her international career that he didn't).

This is actually not a BAD movie though. At least for the first half. Both actors do a decent job, especially Brochere who--in another nod to "Breathless"--is supposed to be an "American" girl (well, half-American anyway). There's an interesting scene in the middle where they return to the guy's hometown where everyone blames him for the suicide of his childhood friend. I wish they had done more with this plot thread, but the movie just becomes very repetitive after that with the pair picking up teenage hustlers for the purposes of sex and murder. The ending is disappointing and lot of added-on text about serial killers might be interesting if you've never seen the 1 million movies they've made in America about serial killers. Ultimately, this movie doesn't offer much insight on the serial killer phenomenon (which would be a dubious achievement anyway), but it certainly does create a tres SEXY pair of them.