Chinese director Lou Ye seems to be the go-to man for realistic sex-infused character dramas. After 2009’s homosexual-themed Spring Fever and 2006’s controversial Summer Palace, featuring full-frontal shots of simulated sex which got it banned in China, the man is at it again with the equally torrid Love and Bruises. This time round, though, it’s all rather less satisfying.
We first meet Chinese student Hua (newcomer Corrinne Yam) wandering the streets after getting dumped by an older Frenchman. Lost and incapacitated, she gets knocked on the head (and off her feet) by construction worker Mathieu (Tahar Rahim). Their meeting soon turns nasty; he physically forces her to have sex with him after buying her a meal. She reluctantly gives in and they develop a sort of psycho-sexual romance—Mathieu forces Hua to cement their bond by mixing their blood together and threatens to jump out the window if she leaves him.
But Hua is increasingly drawn to their lovemaking ritual, even if the hot-headed Mathieu gets increasingly violent. She returns to Beijing following their torrid affair, gets engaged to an ex-lover, but flies back to Paris for a final sexual reconciliation.
It’s hard not to be drawn in by Hua’s sexual confusion and Mathieu’s increasing jealousy; the two characters literally and metaphorically poles apart: Hua the sexually-liberated pseudo-intellectual, Mathieu is the brutish blue-collar worker. Stylistically, too, the film is something of a triumph. The couple’s sense of chaos and disconnect is amplified by cinematographer Yu Lik-wai’s often shaky camera treatment and quiet, meditative shots of the streets of Beijing and Paris, while Peyman Yazdanian’s string-based score does a fine job at conveying the grimness of our protagonists’ dark descent. But while Yam puts on quite a show, she’s let down by Rahim who seems removed from the whole film. And, given how central they are to the drama, it doesn’t help that most of the sex scenes are shot from the waist up.