Behold, yet another intense love story with a shallow male and a far more nuanced female. Gaspar Noé wants to talk about the sentimental value of sex. He could have named the film “Sex” without affecting the idea behind the film, and I feel this is exactly what he set out to explore – what sex means to two people in love. In the process of depicting the act as is (in 3D), with moments of both beauty and grotesque nature, his film can end up feeling more like literal documentation than the exploration of an idea. He has a lovely aesthetic across the cut-to-blacks and perpendicular shots. This film has a distinct visual voice, and I am going to remember it for the same.

His characters, Murphy and Electra, are sincere and immature. So there’s toxicity of course, but nothing you haven’t seen before. The honesty in Noé’s thought of wanting to show something in its purest and ugliest works for me, and it is not something you’d come across that often in the mainstream. This obviously comes across as an indulgent affair, because as much as you invest in their story, there’s a point where one can see that there’s not as much depth as the film thinks there is.