Dirty Doings

The French, it seems, are trying to revive their old reputation as a culture that is smart and naughty about sex. The modern version of French postcards is French cinema--not of the frothy old ooh-la-la sort but so serious that watching a woman caress a man's genitals is like taking an anatomy final at the Sorbonne. Four recent French films of high pedigree have featured sex that goes well beyond soft core. One, Catherine Breillat's Romance, has just opened here. Now we'll see if France and America speak the same dirty language.

It would be pleasing to report that someone has finally made a knowing, attentive and, why not, explicit movie about what people do in bed. But Romance cannot live up, or down, to its fevered billing. It's a slow, morose little film about Marie (Caroline Ducey), who teaches school by day and at night gets primal lessons in sex, rough or tender. Bored with her beau, who declines intercourse, she has a tryst with hunky Paolo (Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi). But her real soul mate is the headmaster of her school (Francois Berleand), who binds and gags her while spouting aphorisms like "Physical love is triviality clashing with the divine." This is Marie's kind of relationship; it means "tying me up without tying me down."

Romance might work if it had an electrifying central performance or some volcanic camera passion. It has neither. Ducey shows nerve and a lot of flesh but zero screen sorcery. As for the naughty bits, there is plenty of flesh but no joy. It's mostly an ordeal--for actress and audience. If the French want to illuminate the world in matters of sex, they'll have to try harder.

--By Richard Corliss