‘Romance’ manufactured to shock

In Theaters ROMANCE

In spite of what its title might suggest, Catherine Breillat’s “Romance” has little to do with romance. It is cold and clinical art house porn, a lofty little skin flick from France that’s causing an international stir because of its extremely graphic, hard-core sexual content.

But don’t expect the film to generate much heat. Sex, like violence, only ignites the screen — and our emotions — if the characters involved have captivated us in some essential way. We don’t necessarily have to like the people involved — although that certainly helps — but we do need to feel connected to them in order to care about what is happening to them on screen. Otherwise, it’s just sex and violence for the sake of sex and violence — and how boring that is when the characters are as disconnected from life and themselves as they are here.

“Romance” uses sex for the sake of sex — and as a catalyst for pretension. That’s its misstep. Unlike real pornography, which is manufactured to titillate, the porn in “Romance” is manufactured to shock, which it does, at least initially, before becoming redundant and dull in its extreme close-ups of male and female genitalia.

The film follows Marie (Caroline Ducey), a Parisian schoolteacher whose live-in boyfriend, Paul (Sagamore Stevenin), says he loves her, but who also says he has lost all sexual interest in her. To Marie, it’s a truth as unsettling as the truth Nicole Kidman shares with Tom Cruise in “Eyes Wide Shut,” and it sends her, like Cruise, out into the night in search of sex.

But unlike Cruise’s character, Marie follows through, quickly hooking up with an impressive host of men, including Paolo (Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi), for a series of graphic, yet uninspired romps. The film becomes unintentionally funny, its shallow brand of sexual philosophizing bordering on ridiculous as Marie tries to get in touch with Marie by getting in touch with half the men in Paris.

Grade: Abstain

“Romance” opens tomorrow at the Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville. It is unrated, but no one under 17 will be admitted.

On Video

“Hideous Kinky”

Gillies MacKinnon’s “Hideous Kinky” is neither hideous nor kinky, which is certain to disappoint some as it stars Kate Winslet in her first film since “Titanic.”

In “Kinky,” Winslet again sheds her inhibitions (and her clothes) as Julia, a hippy English hippie of 1972 in search of personal and spiritual guidance, something this elusive, uneven film doesn’t make sufficiently clear until midway through.

With her two daughters, Bea and Lucy, reluctantly in tow, Julia travels to Marrakech, where she falls in love with a brooding street performer, nearly loses Bea to illness and is forced to grow up.

Sparked by Winslet’s excellent, unaffected performance, “Hideous Kinky” is a visual pleasure that moves to its own free-swinging, staccato rhythm — one that effectively captures the chaotic feel of the times even while it lightly undermines the film’s power.

Still, its cast is strong, particularly Winslet, who is luminous, a natural actress worth watching. Just as her performance lifted “Titanic” even as it sank, it keeps “Hideous Kinky” afloat.

Grade: B

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews are published Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today” and “News Center Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on WCSH-TV’s statewide “Morning Report.”