Talking to a family friend about my disappointing viewing of a 2012 Erotic Neo-Noir Thriller from Bollywood called Hate Story,I was surprised to hear from him,that he had in fact also just recently discovered a 2011 Erotic Drama from France called "Q".After originally thinking that he must have gotten another title for the film confused with Tim Blake Nelson's 2001 movie O,I began to look forward to hopefully seeing an Erotic film being done in the "correct way"
The plot:
Carrying round a box of her fathers ashes due to struggling to say goodbye to her dad,Ceclie tries to deal with the frustrations that she is by getting closer to her main friends Matt (a garage mechanic) and Alex (a car thief).
Finding both of them to have no feelings at all in trying to help and solve the problems,Ceclie begins to let her frustrations by playing on the sexual frustrations of Alex and Matt,which leads to Matt trying to quench the frustrations of desire that Ceclie has brought up,with his girlfriend Alice,who has not yet taken the "next step" with Matt,due to having deep frustrations of allowing her desire to be free.
View on the film:
Staying just about on the right side of Erotic instead of sleaze,each of the relatively new cast members give brave performances as each of them make the non-simulated sex scenes ones which are focused on the inner frustrations of the characters,rather then the exterior titillation.
Appearing in her first ever lead role,the beautiful Deborah Revy gives a strong,confident performance as Ceclie,with Revy making sure that Ceclie does not become a frustrating characters for the viewer by making sure that her attempts to winded other people up connects to the frustrations that Ceclie is trying to untangle.
Using the ongoing Great Recession as a backdrop for the film,the excellent screenplay by writer/director Laurent Bouhnik shows the relationships between Ceclie,Alex,Matt and Alice to be ones that are fractured due to all of them wanting to see growth in their relationships,but being unable to deal with the frustrations that each of them brings out in the other.
Along with the frustrations over their relationship,Bouhnik also brings a clever role reversal element into the film,with Cecilie being shown to be the most masculine character in the movie,from chatting with fellow patrons in a shell room about the qualities of a number of men "in bed",to knowing the exact buttons to press to increase Matt's frustrations,which leads to Bouhnik unleashing what initially appears to be a fracture ending,but slowly shows itself to be an untangling of the frustrations,and also loosely connected to the opening moments of the film.
Shooting in sharp,sharp tracking shots and long,stilted takes,Bouhnik takes the Erotic scenes in a direction which temporarily reveals the hidden causes the characters are frustrated by,which turns the meaning of the "Q" into being a "Q"uestion of desires.
The plot:
Carrying round a box of her fathers ashes due to struggling to say goodbye to her dad,Ceclie tries to deal with the frustrations that she is by getting closer to her main friends Matt (a garage mechanic) and Alex (a car thief).
Finding both of them to have no feelings at all in trying to help and solve the problems,Ceclie begins to let her frustrations by playing on the sexual frustrations of Alex and Matt,which leads to Matt trying to quench the frustrations of desire that Ceclie has brought up,with his girlfriend Alice,who has not yet taken the "next step" with Matt,due to having deep frustrations of allowing her desire to be free.
View on the film:
Staying just about on the right side of Erotic instead of sleaze,each of the relatively new cast members give brave performances as each of them make the non-simulated sex scenes ones which are focused on the inner frustrations of the characters,rather then the exterior titillation.
Appearing in her first ever lead role,the beautiful Deborah Revy gives a strong,confident performance as Ceclie,with Revy making sure that Ceclie does not become a frustrating characters for the viewer by making sure that her attempts to winded other people up connects to the frustrations that Ceclie is trying to untangle.
Using the ongoing Great Recession as a backdrop for the film,the excellent screenplay by writer/director Laurent Bouhnik shows the relationships between Ceclie,Alex,Matt and Alice to be ones that are fractured due to all of them wanting to see growth in their relationships,but being unable to deal with the frustrations that each of them brings out in the other.
Along with the frustrations over their relationship,Bouhnik also brings a clever role reversal element into the film,with Cecilie being shown to be the most masculine character in the movie,from chatting with fellow patrons in a shell room about the qualities of a number of men "in bed",to knowing the exact buttons to press to increase Matt's frustrations,which leads to Bouhnik unleashing what initially appears to be a fracture ending,but slowly shows itself to be an untangling of the frustrations,and also loosely connected to the opening moments of the film.
Shooting in sharp,sharp tracking shots and long,stilted takes,Bouhnik takes the Erotic scenes in a direction which temporarily reveals the hidden causes the characters are frustrated by,which turns the meaning of the "Q" into being a "Q"uestion of desires.