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Description: “Love,” the fourth, and easily the least unsettling, feature from the Argentine director Gaspar Noé, has but one goal: To tell the story of a romance entirely through sex. This ambition may be straightforward, but it is far from simple, as will become abundantly clear if you closely monitor your responses to its unsimulated explicitness.

You’ll have plenty of opportunity, as Mr. Noé gets down to business immediately with an interlude of mutual masturbation that introduces Murphy (Karl Glusman), an American film student living in Paris, and his lover, Electra (Aomi Muyock). (It also acquaints us with Murphy’s preening member, which has a starring role and a much livelier personality than its owner.) From there, we move back and forth in time and from one bed to another as the couple meet and bond, argue and copulate in a variety of configurations and with an assortment of partners.

 

 

The Film:

Excerpt from The Village Voice located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

Love gets an impressive transfer to Blu-ray from Artificial Eye.  The 2 1/4 hour feature is housed, with no supplements, on a dual-layered territory and has a supportive bitrate. The film was shot on digital (Red Epic Dragon) and looks pristine - there are some bold uses of color and superb art-direction. It looks very tight and crisp in 1080P - there are really no flaws with the rendering. This Blu-ray probably looks like exactly the theatrical version of the film, although I can't comment on the 3-D aspects. The 2-D image quality is devoid of imperfections of any kind.

NOTE: This film does not appear to be 'cut' to my knowledge.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artificial Eye use a DTS-HD Master 5.1 at 2261 kbps (16-bit). There is no aggression and not much need for the surround (maybe in the Club a bit) and few effects - the dialogue is all English (with French accents). The film's music is a marvelous cornucopia including, prominently, Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations performed by Glenn Gould (this reviewer has always considered this the most perfect music... ever) plus some may recognize John Carpenter's soundtrack from "Assault on Precinct 13", Pink Floyd's Is There Anybody Out There?, some beautiful Erik Satie and Brian Eno. It sounds magnificent in the lossless - very clean and crisp. There are no subtitles and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'B'-locked.

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BOTTOM LINE:
Typical for a Gaspar Noé film - the critical reaction for Love is strongly divided. Personally, I enjoyed so much of it - the almost minimalist style, the voice-over narration thoughts, the many universal truths, the honesty - it is so strongly discussed because of the, very open adult topic. It amounts to a very humanly-paced film experience. The bare-bones Artificial Eye Blu-ray provides an excellent a/v presentation and the opportunity for 3-D viewers to appreciate those effects if they have the system available. In my opinion this is nothing like Irreversible - except in its ability to shock. Despite the frailties - I found it a very positive expression. I am anxious to see his next project. Noé is obvious a studied cinema fan (note all the posters visible in the film including 'M', Taxi Driver, Freaks etc.) and the main character, a filmmaker, comes with irritating and selfish weaknesses. To those who aren't deterred by the intimacy - this is absolutely recommended despite the lack of extras! In a few ways this is brilliant although others may find it tedious. To each his own.   

Gary Tooze

December 4th, 2015

Available, on Blu-ray in the US on January 5th, 2016:

3-D Blu-rays Reviewed at DVDBeaver: