I shall not deal with plot but just to say that this is pure filmmaking in the finest and most sublime manner. Those of us who can still view or project 4:3 ratio with size go for the authentic in-camera US R1 DVD that is 4:3 the UK DVD is 16:9 this is an ACADEMY ratio film. Having read the on-screen credits I see no mention of Digital Intermediate... ...miracles...blessings...hoorah !! This film would look amazing on an IMAX screen. The compositional framing in an age of mostly fake DI scope presented films is what cinema should be and shows the superior composition that ACADEMY ratio allows for. The girls are wonderful, the eroticism never sleazy or porn like but genuine and sensual. The lead actor totally natural and compelling. This film has a beautiful aromatic feeling it is a revelation.Wonderful !!

I gave this a 7. I don't agree with some of the comments here that it was a 'turkey' or a really bad attempt at an arty film. It was an arty film...but then aren't all French films? Hehe. This film does show some pretty erotic situations and, in a form of humorous way the director is playing with us. The scenes are being shot as a test for the actresses to show undiluted, un-acted true passion through orgasm on camera...and it really does seem that we, the viewers of the real film, are watching just that very movie. Clever stuff. That, however is unfortunately is as clever as it gets. The story moves along slowly but it is a nice and relaxed pace. Enough happens to keep your interest easily. . There are a few holes in the plot; strange irrelevant people; twists; turns; ghostly figures that I could not follow, but that could have been a bad attempt at making it more 'Arty' as another commenter said. . If I said any more I would have to use the Spoiler warning but I will leave it now. The stuff I mentioned already is in the trailer so not a spoiler!! . I would say Go and watch this movie. Just don't expect to completely understand it though.I just HAVE TO say one more thing The women and beauty you witness in this movie are, well, just that: Beautiful. . A pleasure! .As for the debate on if it is porn or art. . It is neither. It always confuse me, why we have this big 'downer' on sex, nudity and well, the discovery and display of the human body! It is just life!

My girlfriend and I saw this at the IFC in NYC on Friday night. I went to film school, she studied French in college, we both loved Short Bus - we thought this would be fun date movie. Man, were we wrong.As a film that's trying to be "art" it humorlessly apes just about every art film convention from the early days of Bergman to Wenders Wings of Desire. It is literally a shopping list of art film cliché's. That in itself would not be a crime if the film's treatment of these cliché's wasn't so boring. As well, the script is mediocre at best. Maybe this is due to a bad translation, but my girl, who speaks French, told me the translation was fairly accurate. And cinematagraphicaly, the film is just shot badly. Many shots are ackwardly framed and staged. It reminded me of Kevin Smith's Clerks, only at least Clerks had a strong story and clever script that over came it's tech limitations. This whole film just feels slightly less than mediocre on every level.As for the story, the director wants us to believe that his doppleganger in the film is observing these woman play out their erotic fantasies because he doesn't understand female pleasure. But it's obvious that he enjoyed watching three girls get naked and screw each other. Just because he didn't touch them doesn't mean he didn't enjoy it egotistically. Yet the film never holds him accountable for this. He is presented as a victim of crazy actresses, an unsympathetic wife, a corrupt judicial system, and ultimately a victim of fate or divinity itself. The film seems to ask us to envy his power at getting these girls to kink it out in front of him at his beck and call and at the same time we are suppose to sympathize at what a good husband, artist, and father figure he is and how nobody understands what a victim he really is. It just doesn't work. Apparently, the events of the film are based on a real situation that happened to the film's director. This story sounds like something a philandering husband would tell his wife about being taken to a strip club. "No, dear, I didn't enjoy it all. I spent the whole time talking with the girls about Hobbes and Locke." Bullsh!t. Also, there is a lot of talk about taboos in the film. Apparently, the director's idea of taboo is having sex in a hotel room. Oh, how daring! Lastly, there are two fairly sexy sequences in the film. However, they are almost completely ruined by the film's score. Every time the girls start to get naked, this bizarre 80's horror film score comes on the soundtrack. This combined with the bad writing and staging just kills any feelings of arousal you may have. Throughout the screening people would just get up and leave. And when the final "tragic" moments of the film were played out the whole theatre was laughing at how bad it was. The only thing anyone was talking about as we filed out into the lobby was how much we wanted our money and time back.

Following the path of his late feature, "Secret things", "The exterminating angels" probably close an era in Jean Claude Brisseau's career(one of the most interesting of contemporary french cinema). You can film sex and nudity and not ever telling stories of provocation and other things that women could refuse to show but in the attempt maybe you don't realize what the camera-eye is registering: passion,loneliness, madness and ... love. Anyone could say Brisseau hides things but you must check if you are aware enough to see what this movie is really are. One of the best of the year and one of the best exercises of freedom in wide format