Critiques (1)
15.12.2013
Who would have expected that an early 1980s American porn flick by a director of Czech origin and with a French starlet in the lead role would turn out to be a film that can boldly measure up to today’s pornography for women, including movies by feminist filmmakers? The captivating Julia Perrin plays a French au pair who passes through several American households in the film’s episodic narrative. Unlike many porn videos today, however, the premise of the au pair in Love Dreams doesn’t take the form of a typical male fantasy about an easy young object of lust or a passionate plaything in the marital bed. On the contrary, the film is conceived as an imaginative odyssey of a somewhat timid girl, during which viewers are presented with various forms of sex as both a means of pleasure and a part of relationships. On the one hand, the narrative satirises and caricatures traditional relationships and, on the other hand, elevates sexual freedom and celebrates sex as a source of pleasure and an expression of feelings. The film does not use women as mere masturbatory objects, but rather shows them as active characters who set the course and mood of sexual activities. Like contemporary progressive porn films, Love Dreams doesn’t rely on close-ups of penetration and a certain kind of performance, but instead gives priority to erotic tension, pleasure, enjoyment and the dynamic between the characters during sex. This is reflected in the fact the action is captured predominantly in broader and longer shots. The film also emphasises the women’s orgasms and contains a minimum of cumshots, which are used not as a way for the men to mark their territory, but in connection with the women’s passion. The film’s highlights are the first sex scene set in a secluded home of a wealthy family, where the wife, played by Bonnie Holiday, enjoys herself with her lover, and the climax, in which the protagonist’s dream man introduces her to the full experience of pleasure.
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