Given its premise and the very explicit trailer, it would've been a shock for Gaspar Noé's 3D movie "Love" to not shock the audience at Cannes. But we've seen it coming.
"I guess Cannes needed a scandal," said the 51-year-old director according to Decider.
"Love" is a film which revolves around cinema school student Murphy and his lover Electra. Told in a non-sequential manner, the movie centers on the male lead when he learns Electra has gone missing after the pair end their romantic entanglement.
"I think the whole 3D porno thing is a bit of a marketing gimmick," said actor Karl Glusman to Variety.
"If you go online and look at porn and compare it to the movie we made, there's a big difference. In pornography, there's often no pubic hair. There are no breakups and fights. There's very little emotional investment from the performers. To put it frankly, I doubt Thierry [Fremaux, the Cannes director] would put a straight porno in Cannes. If you look at the definition of pornography, the chief purpose is sexual arousal. Unless people are masturbating in the movie theater, you can't call our movie porn. I haven't heard of that happening yet. But if it did, I'd be pretty flattered."
Despite pushing boundaries and shocking the audience at Cannes, critics have heralded the film as it once did for "Blue is the Warmest Color."
The director's faith in the power of great sex to support an almost 2½-hour feature is surprisingly sweet," wrote Seattle Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis. "And ultimately misplaced. 'Love' has nothing left with which to build its characters or set them in motion."
