Curiosa
This unabashedly erotic French film looks at the sizzling love affair between two famed writers who pushed the boundaries of expression and sexuality in the 19th century.
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I don’t mind saying that I prefer American films to those from overseas. Saying this risks one being labeled a philistine, but the truth is that you can appreciate foreign cinema while syncing most closely with films that originate from your own culture.
But I’m also not afraid to say that there are certain things other nations’ filmmakers seem to be better at than us. The British do period costume dramas best. Ditto for martial arts films from Japan, Korea and China. And nobody consistently makes such unabashedly erotic movies as France.
(Though the Spaniards have spent the last quarter-century trying to catch up.)
“Curiosa” seems almost an oddity in our increasingly repressed age. Though it’s told from a feminine perspective, and directed and co-written by a woman, Lou Jeunet, it takes unapologetic pleasure in gazing at beautiful female bodies (with not a little male parts too). It’s a story about love and sex, how they intertwine and how they sometimes do not, and the pain and enjoy that derive from them.
The title comes from the word for photos, sculpture and other physical objects of erotica, which factor heavily into the tale.
Noémie Merlant, half of the astonishing love affair in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” plays Marie de Heredia. In time she will become one of France’s most celebrated writers, but in the late 19th century she is a rather sheltered young woman who is very curious about sex.
She is being wooed by Pierre Louÿs (Niels Schneider), a handsome young rake already known for publishing scandalous stories of infidelity and bacchanalian lifestyles, often drawn from his own experiences. But her parents steer her to a marriage with Henri de Régnier (Benjamin Lavernhe), an established poet who’s kindly but lacking in the passion department — his stiff collars and monocle are a clue.
Henri and Pierre are actually close friends, and Pierre is briefly angered at Henri swooping in to steal his love — until he realizes he can still have her as his mistress. Their affair goes on for a number of years, with pauses and some contention, and Henri is quite aware of what’s going on.
During Marie’s first visits with Pierre, she is shocked to find him carrying on with an Algerian woman, Zohra (Camélia Jordana), who is as practiced and brazen in the arts of seduction as she is a frightened novice. In one memorable scene, Zohra dances for Pierre and a few of his friends, completely nude except for some trinkets and jewelry. Her face is barren of fear, and the men behave like amused schoolboys presented with a wonderful new game. She controls them like practiced lion tamer.
Pierre is obsessed with photography, using a rudimentary little box camera to take nudes of his ladies. Marie eagerly poses for him, appreciating her own body and the way he gazes upon it. Eventually she wrestles the camera away from Pierre and begins taking some photographs of her own, and also is inspired to start her own writings.
Pierre also takes photos of Zohra, the flower girl on the street — pretty much any woman he can convince to pose, from the young and lithe to the old and matronly. Some he sleeps with, some not, the lines of art and passion disappearing completely for him. He is a hedonist and perhaps shallow, but at least is not cruel or self-deluded.
Undoubtedly the sequence that will be most talked about is after Marie convinces Pierre to marry her youngest sister, Louise (Mathilde Warnier), as a way to cement their own affair, and he photographs the two sisters together. The photographs themselves are quite stunning, not so lascivious as exploring the female body in abstract appreciation of their lovely forms.
One shot of the sisters’ hindquarters pressed against each other is… well, memorable.
Intriguingly, the film contains almost no overt depictions of active lovemaking, instead turning its eye to the flirtations and voyeurism before, and the languid time after. I think this is just right: though the act of sex is the center of our passion, it’s the anticipation and the afterglow that linger longest in our memories — and what spark our desire for the next coupling.
Jeunet co-wrote the screenplay with Raphaëlle Desplechin, based on the writings and photographs of de Heredia and Louÿs. It’s mainly Marie’s story as she becomes worldlier under the tutelage of a more experienced man, eventually breaks from his yoke to find her own identity and wanders back to him on her own terms.
I’d call that a distinctly feminist journey, though most modern observers who use that label will likely tut-tut at Merlant’s frequent, decidedly un-coy nude scenes. I can’t even fathom of an American actress who would star in a movie like this, or even see how Marie’s sexual blossoming is about empowerment, not degradation.
Maybe that’s why when mainstream American movies try to get sexy, we get mortifying stuff like “Fifty Shades of Gray.”