Book of Love
- Video
- 2011
- 2h 6m
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Surprisingly effective mini-romance
The animation specialists at Adult Source Media, known mainly for imported Japanese hentai releases, made a few Romantic features for the Couples market about five years back, and "Book of Love" is by far the best of them. Boasting a strong central performance by Kiara Diane, it won me over, though I was resisting (having disliked the other companion films) most of the way.
In one sense, and I will never be able to confirm this given the obscurity of this distributor and its proud-to-be-a-couple leaders Wendy & Jim Crawford, the film is a throwback to those dreaded paste-up projects dating back to innumerable grade Z movies made by Jerry Warren in the '50s and '60s. The concept, best lampooned and exploited in Woody Allen's debut "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" is to take a (preferably low-brow) foreign film, heavily edit it, dub it and add some Hollywood actors to create a brand-new film for American consumption. Perhaps the most successful such exercise ever attempted was adding a dash of Raymond Burr to turn the quality "Gojira" into the iconic hit "Godzilla".
I dredge up this history because structurally "Book of Love" bears a distinct resemblance to this approach, though only hinting at it - the paste-up is never explicit. Format has bored (but beautiful) housewife Kiara Diane taken for granted by her husband Ramon Nomar, to the extent that as he heads off for work he recites a laundry list of chores for wifey to attend to. This immediately put me in a feminist state of mind, and sure enough if one doesn't dwell on the requisite XXX content, the following film has a very remote resemblance to Chantal Akerman's classic "Jeanne Dielman", as Kiara rather listlessly putters around the house.
Before you accuse me of making an outrageous stretch, take note that Akerman directed a self-conscious erotic film "Je Tu Il Elle" near the beginning of her career.
Kiara spends her day lounging about, masturbating as she reads chapters from a female stroke book which I guess could pass for a Romance Novel. Each chapter is illustrated by live action, in which the rest of the cast pantomime highly erotic, sensual love scenes, mostly outdoors. That supporting cast that doesn't speak is made up entirely of European (and Eastern European at that) talent, hence my "paste-up" categorization - a relatively brief U.S. cover story, and the body of the film shot and cast in Europe, deftly integrated by the "book come to life" gimmick.
On paper this doesn't sound promising at all, but the Crawfords deliver (let's assume they directed the footage rather than just buying it as they do with their Japanese product) a series of four terrific vignettes. My favorite episode stars the diminutive but huge-nippled Czech actress Iwia, who earned a rave for me in "Wellness", one of several films she made for daring! Media. She takes on a guy with a huge dick here, and it is a classic segment.
All the women are beauties, setting up the climax where Ramon returns home and instead of having slaved away preparing a big party as he assigned her to do, Kiara gets all dolled up and seduces her husband for a satisfying bit of closure to end the movie. Kiara Diane is an unsung Chatsworth actress, and "Book of Love" is an unsung quality piece of eroticism from an unlikely source.
In one sense, and I will never be able to confirm this given the obscurity of this distributor and its proud-to-be-a-couple leaders Wendy & Jim Crawford, the film is a throwback to those dreaded paste-up projects dating back to innumerable grade Z movies made by Jerry Warren in the '50s and '60s. The concept, best lampooned and exploited in Woody Allen's debut "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" is to take a (preferably low-brow) foreign film, heavily edit it, dub it and add some Hollywood actors to create a brand-new film for American consumption. Perhaps the most successful such exercise ever attempted was adding a dash of Raymond Burr to turn the quality "Gojira" into the iconic hit "Godzilla".
I dredge up this history because structurally "Book of Love" bears a distinct resemblance to this approach, though only hinting at it - the paste-up is never explicit. Format has bored (but beautiful) housewife Kiara Diane taken for granted by her husband Ramon Nomar, to the extent that as he heads off for work he recites a laundry list of chores for wifey to attend to. This immediately put me in a feminist state of mind, and sure enough if one doesn't dwell on the requisite XXX content, the following film has a very remote resemblance to Chantal Akerman's classic "Jeanne Dielman", as Kiara rather listlessly putters around the house.
Before you accuse me of making an outrageous stretch, take note that Akerman directed a self-conscious erotic film "Je Tu Il Elle" near the beginning of her career.
Kiara spends her day lounging about, masturbating as she reads chapters from a female stroke book which I guess could pass for a Romance Novel. Each chapter is illustrated by live action, in which the rest of the cast pantomime highly erotic, sensual love scenes, mostly outdoors. That supporting cast that doesn't speak is made up entirely of European (and Eastern European at that) talent, hence my "paste-up" categorization - a relatively brief U.S. cover story, and the body of the film shot and cast in Europe, deftly integrated by the "book come to life" gimmick.
On paper this doesn't sound promising at all, but the Crawfords deliver (let's assume they directed the footage rather than just buying it as they do with their Japanese product) a series of four terrific vignettes. My favorite episode stars the diminutive but huge-nippled Czech actress Iwia, who earned a rave for me in "Wellness", one of several films she made for daring! Media. She takes on a guy with a huge dick here, and it is a classic segment.
All the women are beauties, setting up the climax where Ramon returns home and instead of having slaved away preparing a big party as he assigned her to do, Kiara gets all dolled up and seduces her husband for a satisfying bit of closure to end the movie. Kiara Diane is an unsung Chatsworth actress, and "Book of Love" is an unsung quality piece of eroticism from an unlikely source.
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- lor_
- Feb 5, 2016
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- Runtime2 hours 6 minutes
- Color
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