An Affair of Love

A careful & thought-provoking examination of how two lives intersect.... and how the nature of that intersection defines and then changes the level of personal engagement. The film is compelling in its continual exploration of how we know ourselves, how we know each other...the lens & filters (real & imagined) through which we know the world. Both performances were exemplary...and the conversations (which drove the bulk of the film) remarkable for their seeming realism. (even with subtitles!)

An ad in the paper with a specific sexual fantasy asked for. A meeting of 2 strangers, who remain so both to us and to each other. A subtle deepening of feelings for each other...this movie is so delicate it is like gossamer. Nuances of looks, smiles, movement. "Elle" winds up a little harder, "lui" a little softer. I was spellbound by it. Recommend it to those who like their movies to stay with them for a while. Great acting and direction.

This little movie is simply sublime. I ran across it again when searching for more Sergi Lopez films. His range is simply amazing, from sensitive fantasy lover (as in this film) to the most dastardly twisted villain. I would be hard-pressed to think of any more talented male actor in European film today. I particularly liked him in "Dirty Pretty Things", due to its serious, thoughtful treatment of the pressures on immigrants. "A Friend Like Harry" was just great entertainment, humor of the darkest sort.

"Une Liason Pornografique" is still another type of film altogether. The French produce many interesting films on sex, some successful, some less so. This is of the best I can recall from my own 20-year love affair with European art films. Another recent French film that I can whole-heartedly recommend is Coline Serreau's Chaos, which took several years to cross the ocean to the U.S., but was originally released in 2001. Also Chocolat by Claire Denys, another quiet but piercingly accurate character study.

In the search for intimacy and meaning in the dehumanizing urban environment, quite personable, intelligent and attractive people have to resort to newspaper or online ads to meet someone for romance or just companionship. In this film, however, a man and woman, both attractive and personable, seek depersonalised sex, not involvement. Or so they thought. Of course they become emotionally involved, and then the question becomes: will they continue?

This is a very nicely judged piece using a combination of interview sequences intercut with flashbacks. There are no distractions: we focus almost entirely on Nathalie and Sergi as they are interviewed separately about their affair. Their versions are not identical but there is only one flashback version of each encounter so there is not a lot of confusion. The curious thing is that although intimacy develops it follows the rules of the original impersonal pornographic encounter – no names, no talk about jobs and families and friends, no swapping of personal detail. They meet once or twice a week in the same coffee bar and hotel room for six months or more, yet still know virtually nothing about each other (apart from their sexual fantasies). Why this holding back? Neither is currently attached to anyone else. The only explanation is that they really didn't want to get involved, or don't want to take the risk. Burned before? Who knows?

Nathalie Baye as the (slightly older) woman is poised, charming and not obviously hung up about sex. She seeks the zipless f*** of feminist legend. She does have trouble expressing her feelings – for her `I love you' are the hardest words in the language (all right, `Je t'aime'). Sergi Lopez as her homme de jour is a bit more emotionally expressive but still holds himself back.

I suppose one could see the film as suggesting that the alienation of modern life can be traced to an unwillingness to become emotionally attached, that life is faster and cleaner if relationships are disposable without much pain. These two want intimacy, but they don't want to pay for it.

It's a well-made movie with plenty of Parisian bustle and lots of nice close-ups. It's all a bit sad, though. Have we been reduced to being consumers of personal relationships as well as sex?

From its title, A Pornographic Affair might seem like the kind of film that might appeal to a 13-yr old boy just entering puberty. Its actually a very restrained and beautiful love story. The format of the narrative is in the form of interviews of Him and Her after the affair has ended. There is a mysterious fantasy which brought them together. We never find out, despite the interviewers repeated prodding, what that fantasy was that led Her to advertise and Him to read and respond to the advertisement.

Inevitably, the physical aspects of that fantasy don't matter because the two eventually move on to more conventional forms of sexual activity. Neither knows anything about the other - children, marital status, profession or age. Both are good people and inevitably the affair has to develop into something more. Both are charming and beautiful in their own way. Eventually they begin to like and be infatuated with each other.

Obviously, adult themes are explored in this film, but there is no gratuitous nudity or smut. It has a surprisingly human touch even though the route followed in a conventional relationship is inverted here.