Story of this movie is about Love, it's not about sex or lust (in contrary of other movies such Lolitta). A Chinese gentleman who fall in love with a young French girl who has a poor family whom are looking only for money and getting back to the rich and aristocratic French life! (specially her mother and older brother). Chinese generous man has no job and he does nothing but loving the girl. In the movie we will see another French girl who is closed friend of the main girl (Jane March, we don't know her name in the movie), her dream and wish is to become a prostitute!, which shows us prostitution minds of French girls in compare of honest and pure love from a Chinese gentleman.From my view, the main point of this movie is about these meanings, not about sex. I think movie tries to show us different meanings of what we think and we believes about societies, people and cultures. When we see a gentleman can not marry a French woman, because he is a Chinese!. Maybe that's why the main characters of the movie has not any name! so, it can be anyone! you, me!Movie has many nice parts, for example: 1- when older brother is beating his sister, the younger brother who has gun, never try to stop him, but he plays piano! 2- when older brother and mother they see Chinese man's money. 3- When mother asks her daughter if she slept with Chinese man for money!

This film is my favorite. It shows how a Chinese man in his thirties falls in love with a 15-year-old girl. Although she is not conscious of the love she feels for him because of the social pressure she has to face, young Marguerite Duras (the film is based on her autobiography)completely abandons herself to the man and discovers true love. To me, the way the film was shot is quite poetic, even artistic. Far from conventions, The Lover is an immersion in colonial Asia. You can smell,ear,taste and touch what the characters are experiencing: something unique that even time can't erase.

I have to start by saying this is my favorite movie of all times. I consider it both technically and as a storyline to be perfectly done. I have seen it dozens of times, it almost breaks my heart each time, the incredible acting, the story and the music are simply impeccable. Watching it several times made me understand the drama better, how She hides her love behind society's appearances, with her heart torn apart during a brilliant piece of music by Chopin. I don't think I have seen such expressive faces of actors before, each character so fantastically defined, you can practically read his/her thoughts on their faces. Lovely movie, a masterpiece in cinema indeed!

I saw 2046 and wanted something else that would take me to someplace other than the normal film construct. I looked through the indie film channels and found this on at 2 am, I recorded it to watch later. I read a review by Ebert and others which said the film was just like Emmanuelle and basically soft core porn. I wasn't too enthused by this, even though in highschool I liked the dubbed version of Emmanuelle so much that I bought a copy, it was so dream-like and ethereal. I looked at the director of The Lover and saw that he also directed 2 brothers about the two tigers and I liked that movie so I got more enticed. I do like to read a little backstory about a film before I see it, because I see them as a piece of creation/art and since I am spending an hour or two of my life observing this creation I would like to understand the context of it. The Lover is a good film, and a great imagination. Even though the original author experienced this same plot in real life, her imagination is the one that brought all these events into existence and viewed them from this narrative.I empathized with all the characters. The director and the original author depicted the pain of each person so well, usually without even saying a word. Just the role that each person plays and their conditions really draws you in. I could relate to the older brother and the film even made me reevaluate my own status in my family. When the young girl asks her mother why she treats her older brother so differently than the rest of the family the mother simply says 'I don't know'. That to me made this movie more true and legitimate than any other movie I have seen. Because everything else that happens in the movie relates to this trueness, and it all correlates so crystal clear. It is truly a sad movie. That is the core of what it sent to me. The poor young girl, the poor family. It was broken apart through events and the protective figurehead, the father, died. Now, they are left in squalor in Asia, and they are truly at a loss at how to reorient their lives. It is like watching headless animals wandering around with no understanding of what to do or how to fix it. And out of this, lack of center, the young girl enters her sexuality and her female skill of lethal seduction. The seduction that many young women use to give their feelings of insignificance something of power and control. This young girl draws a wealthy man to her by her skills and right from the start her animal nature tells her that she just caught what she was fishing for, in a sense. She has become significant. And she uses this role that she has created to elevate her to near or above her domineering older brother, and the squalor around her. She finds love, that she is missing from her mother and dead father. And she knows that the wealthy chinaman only wants her because he can't have her. From the start this chinaman showed that he was unworthy of compassion, by the way he told her he only wanted sex, and so she began her pantheress pursuit of his carcass. Her sense of guilt was non existent from his display of inconsiderateness for the thing he wanted to eat and use, and so the young girl's mind was free to take her prey down to lengths even she couldn't know she was capable of. And perhaps she was still more able to continue with it because of the hurt of her knowing that if she ever did fall for him his sense of need would die along with his inability to possess her. She liked how powerless he was, and to be honest, it is very enjoyable to be reassured that no matter how much money you have, you can never buy somebody's emotions.Though the last of the feeling that you get from this movie is the sadness that this poor girl had to sell herself for the emotions that she could have and should have gotten from her family and those around her, love, devotion and importance. I see it all the time, and it just makes the woman feel cheap and disillusioned with life and cold at how heartless and simple people can be.