Maidexpl
Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
Sameer Callahan
It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
lamegabyte
Ah La France! The only country in the world where nobody respects rules especially those who makes them!Here I saw clearly Ovidie (just dressed with a red top) getting slammed by a man and then giving him a blowjob with his juice all over her face and it's not rated X! In addition, see the title and fact that the story is indeed about making a porn movie! Just because the old senile perverts in the commission found an iconic french actor (JP Leaud, the avatar of an iconic french director Truffaut) and that the movie is dubbed arthouse movie! and it's dubbed like that because it's the kind of movie in which the hypocritical elite tries to be scared: Pornography! usually it's a vice for the poor not for the well educated and born bourgeois!Well, at the end, X or not, it's still a french movie so a boring, useless, awful production... The only good point here is that Ovidie shows her talent but personnally i have never doubted her from what she did in her ... porn movies!
Rodrigo Amaro
In "Le Pornographe" Jean-Pierre Léaud plays Jacques Laurent, an old and famous director of pornographic films in the 1970's and 1980's, who after an absence from filmmaking for many years decides to make his last film projects while trying to reconciliate with his teenage son (Jéremie Renier) who disapproves his father's career. Bertrand Bonello directs a quite controversial material but lost his way while trying to focus the depth of his film on the dramatic side of the story.Porn is all about the true in front of you and there's no escape from that. At least the sex scenes are performed by the actors, there's no falsity on that. Drama in its highest form only has nuances of reality, it touches reality very closer but it's false, you can see where fiction begins and reality ends. Here's examples of both statements: Action actors (sometimes) depends on the stunt doubles to perform their risky scenes; porn actors don't, they are committed to the sexual acts. Now, the film in question broke the barrier between both medias (dramatic and pornography), made relevant to the story but while it pushed the envelope in a great way in one genre (the porn) it made the other one totally uninteresting, without firmness of purpose and, I really didn't want to say this but, quite boring. This plot on the hands of a Bergman or an Altman (first names that comes to mind in terms of quality in drama) would be fantastic, and they wouldn't use graphic scenes to play their story. P.T. Anderson made something similar and ten times better with his "Boogie Nights". The eroticism was a supporter from the story involving persons behind the porn world.So, the only interesting thing in the film is the film within the film, the porn film directed by Léaud's character in a very explicit scene (there's two scenes, being the first most shocking for regular viewers of drama films). The way the scenes somehow fit the film was interesting, the reactions of the non-porn actors and all. Towards the end of the film when Jacques is interviewed he says about how he started to make porn movies and here's an interesting question left to us when he talks about pornographic films being an art. In which category you would put a film like "Le Pornographe": in porn or drama? It plays with our heads for a while. There's no way you can relate with this director living a crisis in his life neither his rebel son preaching a silent revolution to change things on the country with his colleagues; everything they do is so disconnected, a bad presentation of facts, a weak and confusing narrative that doesn't know how to hold the audience's attention (except for the already mentioned film within the film). In short, the drama is fake and boring while the sex is real and interesting. It's a real disappointment that Jean-Pierre Léaud was part of this film with one of his weakest performances (he gets better in the final moments) in an almost meaningless film. Very weak film, watch it only out of curiosity and nothing more. 5/10
FilmCriticLalitRao
Le Pornographe can be termed as a decent film directed by Bertrand Bonello as it does not shock any viewer who has self conceived notions about the film's title.It is one of those typical French films in which characters ramble on various life affirming themes.This is the reason why the film's title is an absolutely inappropriate misnomer as the word "Le Pornographe" does not do much justice to this film's central themes.Bertrand Bonello has made effective use of his film's principal character,a famous French director of pornographic films Jacques Laurent to conduct an observational study about various human relationships which include a troubled father son relationship,a pallid husband wife relationship.These relationships are so strongly portrayed that the topic as well as scant depiction of pornography is easily sidelined.Although this film features some famous porn stars like HPG,Ovidie etc,it is through actors like Jean Pierre Léaud, Jérémie Renier,Catherine Mouchet and Dominique Blanc that Bertrand Bonello is able to lead his film to its inscrutable conclusion.
bijou-2
This film , as one previous reviewer has mentioned, is pretentious and boring. The sex scenes are gratuitous and add nothing to the narrative. This film has less of a reason to depict graphic sex than DEEP THROAT did yet it manages to work up to a senseless and oddly boring sexually graphic moment and with even worst actors (imagine that!)than that silly camp film.It is fitting that at the turn of the century sex would be depicted as a silent dirty act by a tired old French director. He blames youth for the impotence in this bogus film and that is not fair. This movie lives in a vacuum of it's own making.The worst of porn was never this bad. As the ads for the French Classic EMMANUELLE once stated, "x was never like this." The BBFC was right! Take ten second out and you have the impotent tragedy this film really is; Leave them in and you have exploitation of the public under false pretences. The director should apologise to us for subjecting us to this . We expect more out of French Cinema.
