Romance, by Christine Breillat - a review

I wrote this review of Christine Breillat's film 'Romance' in 2002. I was invited to see it by Anglican Media Sydney, and to participate in a panel organised by the Sydney Morning Herald. The film had been banned, and then the ban overturned. The panel included a feminist, a pornographer who had formerly been a censor (would you believe), a 'concerned parent', and me, the Christian.


Let me be direct: don’t go and see this movie. Romance is crude, pretentious, repugnant, sad and dull. I could not recommend this film to anyone, on either moral and artistic grounds. However, should this film have been banned (as it was momentarily by the Australian office of Film and Literature Classification)? Should Christians have campaigned against the public screening of this and similar pieces?

Having seen the film (participating in a panel run by the Sydney Morning Herald at the behest of Anglican Media), I think not. If you list the various sexual activities depicted in this film you would be likely to question my judgement: genital nudity, oral sex, sado-masochism, rape, and most controversially, scenes of actual (as opposed to simulated) sexual intercourse - the whole repertoire. However, there were certain features of the context of these depictions, as I will explain, that made them different in character even to some less technically revealing M and MA-rates films.

Romance is a deliberately ironic title. Director Catherine Breillat narrates the sexual odyssey of Marie, a young school teacher. Marie is in love with the narcissistic Paul, but he is sexually cold. As a result, she leaves his bed and seeks satisfaction in bold sexual experimentation with a variety of partners. None of the new experiences seem particularly satisfactory; some are even abusive. The men Marie meets are her biggest problem - though she desires them, they are almost all twisted in some way. Her sequence of experiences lead to a devastating rape at the hands of a casual lover. Eventually, her only liberation from her relationship is through a pregnancy and the murder of Paul. We are then treated to a technicolour childbirth scene - which drew the only gasp of shock from the audience!

This is a French film with all the surrealism and metaphysical ruminating, existentialism and feminism one could want for. It is not particularly erotic. In fact, the result of showing so much was rather comic at first, and then extremely dull. Having prayed “lead me not into temptation” as I entered the cinema, I found my prayer unexpectedly answered. It is a cold journey: the audience is not drawn to sympathise with any character in the traditional way. Marie’s sexual journey is a tragic, frustrating and disappointing one.

I would not call Romance pornographic. Pornography exploits desire in search of profit. It is about lust, quick, on-tap, sexual fantasy without the bother of a relationship. Romance was bad - even revolting - but it wasn’t porn. It was sexually cold. It was aimed at a cappuccino-drinking, art-house crowd and will only be shown in small inner-city cinemas. If it hadn’t been banned, it wouldn’t have made it to our screens at all, I daresay.

The experience of viewing Romance led me to several observations. The first is that the response of law - banning in this case - is almost always counter-productive, especially when the work involved has something to say, not just an intent to titillate. Advocating a ban is a simplistic reaction to something which asks for a more complex response, and inevitably brings more people in to see the film! Romance continues an ongoing exploration of female sexuality in our society which includes women’s magazines and televised inanities like Sex in the City and Ally McBeal. At least this film is honest, and doesn’t glamorise promiscuous sex, unlike Pretty Woman and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Here was a raw and open portrayal of the curse’s consequence for the female: “your desire will be for him, and he will rule over you” (Gen 3:16). For all her attempts at liberating herself, Marie repeatedly assumes attitudes of submission to men, even in her fantasies. While claiming feminist credentials, I felt that Breillat allowed us to see the degrading of Caroline Ducey, the actress playing Marie. I was interested that the representative feminist on the panel was quite disappointed with the film.

Secondly, even though I would not have others banned from seeing this film, I must discourage them. The cinema opens our souls like almost no other art form. Our eyes are the lamps of our whole bodies, as Jesus said (Matt 6:22); what we see effects us. In some way, human beings feel that to watch acts of whatever type is to participate in them in some way, to come dangerously close to committing the act itself. The veterans of war know this too well. Our memories capture images, and they may never fade away. Christians know the fragility and vulnerability of the inner human only too well. While allowing a choice for adults to view this film, we can also urge them to choose not to.

Thirdly, as was all too evident at this special preview screening, sixties-style liberalism is a hypocritical and condescending ideology. In an introductory lecture, we were told of the “principled” distributors and film reviewers who pushed for the review of the ban; and of the speaker’s fundamentalist father, who didn’t understand art. Liberalism pretends to appeal to “principles”, like “freedom of speech” and “the right for adults to choose what they watch”, all the while advocating nothing of the sort. Would the liberal press have argued so strongly for the right to see an anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi film? Or a gory anti-abortion film? Of course not - and neither should they. We are all absolutists, and we all believe in censorship, ultimately. But liberals try to conceal their absolutism with an appeal to these golden principles of the Enlightenment. It is about time their bluff was called!