An Affair of Love (2008)

The original french title was more provocative: Une Liaison Pornographique. But An Affair of Love is just as appropriate a title for this disconcertingly intimate recounting of the relationship between a nameless man (Sergi Lopez from Western) and woman (The Return of Martin Guerre's Nathalie Baye). The two enter a hotel room as strangers on an anonymous sexual adventure, but they exit as lovers who have misread each other tragically and pathetically.

Now, this being a quintessentially French film (even if director Frederic Fonteyne is Belgian-born and Lopez is Spanish), monsieur and madame talk and analyze an awful lot -- even during the film's most erotic scene. But at least the talk isn't cheap: By alternating what He says to an unseen interviewer with what She says and what the neutral camera shows, Fonteyne edges closer than most to capturing the mysterious rhythms of liaisons-pornographique, romantique, and otherwise. A-

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