Thursday, July 12, 2007
The New “Lady Chatterley”: Francophilia + “Natural” Sex = Crazy Good Reviews
filed under: We Make Art Not Sex by Melissa Gira
There’s a new Lady Chatterely in town, and this time, she’s translated:
The New York Times, in their Video Minute (which I can’t embed here, and yes, I’m registering complaint as I blog with the “relevant parties”) lavishes praise on how “remarkable” the film is just for having been translated into French from its English source, giving the film a “newness, an aliveness, a freshness.” Sex, is, after all, fusty musty dusty and funky. Granted, that clean outdoorsy sex Lawrence is all about needs no translation.
Really, I don’t mean to overly hate on the Times. It’s just that my morning blogging habits have me reading the paper version at a cafe before cracking my laptop. They even offered up this little gem, from their review, “Parlez-Vous Lawrence? Love, Sex and Fresh Air,” which itself is no longer available without logging in: “Every frame of the film seems alive with a sensuality that is both wild and intelligent.”
I’m not free of a little French fetish, either. The French just seem to get away with approaching sex with a more “evolved” aesthetic, of suffusing sex with intelligence, of eroticizing the theory of sex itself. D. H. Lawrence himself was credited with doing to sex in the English language what the French masters had been getting away with for centuries. (Anais Nin, who was Lawrence’s first literary defender, was also given these honors. She may have been born in France, but America is where her sensual voice took root.)
Lady Chatterley is hitting American release this month, after having netted five Cesar awards in France. Showtimes here.
Comments
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
“Natural” sex = lots (and lots!) of water imagery and long shots of trees rustling in the breeze.
This movie in French?