Romance X is about a young girl, Marie, who's deeply in love with her boyfriend, Paul. The only problem is that he's not willing to have sex with her. This brings their relationship to the edge. After a year or two, Marie 's starting to become obsessed by it and ends up picking men off the streets to have sex with her. Soon, it's not all about the "deed" itself (or pleasure) anymore and Marie finds herself in the middle of a sickening game of sexual power and perversion, which goes further and further...
When this film came out, it caused a bit of a fuzz. Its sexually explicit scenes upset many viewers. It raised some questions about whether it was pornography or art. Having seen the movie, I can say that it's certainly not a porn flick, but that it's not better than your average "relationship" drama. The problems of these characters are very recognizable and the acting is pretty good too, but Catherine Breillat(the director)seems to focus on sensationalism rather than on story. This film got a lot of attention in the media and I'm sure many people watched it.(including me). It was even programmed at a relatively early hour on one of the Belgian channels. And I think this is the problem with the movie: people watched it "for art's sake". There's nothing wrong with that (there's nothing wrong with seeing an ordinary porn film either), except for the fact that everybody was made to believe that this was ground-breaking stuff and that it was cool to name this a masterpiece. Well...it isn't: neither original(see THE IDIOTS(which was good), or the Belgian "S."(the same problem as this film)or some recent French(!)films(SITCOM for example)), nor a masterpiece. Still, this isn't a bad film either. There are some good ideas and feelings in it. But that doesn't distinguish it from an average "normal" film. Except for the explicit sex scenes that is. 6/10
When this film came out, it caused a bit of a fuzz. Its sexually explicit scenes upset many viewers. It raised some questions about whether it was pornography or art. Having seen the movie, I can say that it's certainly not a porn flick, but that it's not better than your average "relationship" drama. The problems of these characters are very recognizable and the acting is pretty good too, but Catherine Breillat(the director)seems to focus on sensationalism rather than on story. This film got a lot of attention in the media and I'm sure many people watched it.(including me). It was even programmed at a relatively early hour on one of the Belgian channels. And I think this is the problem with the movie: people watched it "for art's sake". There's nothing wrong with that (there's nothing wrong with seeing an ordinary porn film either), except for the fact that everybody was made to believe that this was ground-breaking stuff and that it was cool to name this a masterpiece. Well...it isn't: neither original(see THE IDIOTS(which was good), or the Belgian "S."(the same problem as this film)or some recent French(!)films(SITCOM for example)), nor a masterpiece. Still, this isn't a bad film either. There are some good ideas and feelings in it. But that doesn't distinguish it from an average "normal" film. Except for the explicit sex scenes that is. 6/10