Sex Is Comedy
Sex Is Comedy
| 20 October 2004 (USA)
Sex Is Comedy Trailers

A director struggles with a difficult sex scene between a young actor and actress who can't stand one another. Aided by her loyal assistant, she is hell-bent on getting the scene right without compromise.

Reviews
MBT

Toward the end of the movie, one of the main characters says, "Nudity is so boring." That's easy for him to say. He's on that side of the screen.Anything -- nudity, aliens, raindrops against a windowpane -- anything to relieve the boredom and tedious dialog that so many French film makers think is deep and meaningful but which is just annoying. It isn't deep. It isn't meaningful. It's just silly nonsense to endure.What a waste of talent from actors to whom art is everything and yet nothing. Wait. Now they've got me doing it.I'm going to go watch a gangster film.

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henk321

I don't recommend watching this movie. It's a movie in which a movie is being filmed, with no attraction between actress and actor being played. The sex scene at the end of the movie which is to explain the reluctance of the actress (being played in the movie) to cooperate with the actor (being played in the movie)in it is a blunt repetition of the same scene in the Breillat movie Fat Girl. Everything there was played with more delicacy, if you can attach delicacy to a sex act like that. A typical French expression for the the thing happening in Sex is comedy is Oh la la! In Breillat's film Brief Crossing there also is sensitivity. In Sex is comedy I don't see real sensitivity and also a clear plot for the movie is not being developed so that there is a rather loose story with the disillusion of the end.

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cwx

I wasn't surprised to read a comment by the director to the effect that she made this film as an antidote to all those "making of" DVD featurettes, as that certainly struck me. I do confess that I have a penchant for "meta," but I found this film to be very accessible and entertaining, and not even in a labored, self-consciously clever way, which is certainly a bit of what you expect in a film about film-making. It is very "French" in that there are a great deal of outlandish, yet occasionally compelling theories about how film-making (and even sexuality) "works," but since the director doesn't quite play herself (using an avatar instead), we're left with a lot of choices (since I'm pretty sure she's constantly contradicting herself). Apparently Catherine Breillat specializes in hard-to-watch films, but I'd definitely say this one doesn't qualify. I really enjoyed the dialog, the balance between the cinematic and the natural, the relationships between the director character and her assistant and actor, and so on. Highly recommended.

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tedg

All of us, and certainly most filmmakers are trapped in small worlds. But it must be hell to be trapped in one that society recognizes as such. Breillat makes sometimes sensitive movies, all from within this tight shell, all with the same screams.But this one is different, a whole new tone. This time she follows a French model for films that are essays: she makes a film about a film that is an essay on sex. It works because such things are talk about movies and the portrayal of life in movies.It works because we don't have to relate to the poor girl in question, instead the filmmaker who is struggling with the representation.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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