MovieChat Forums > La vie d'Adèle (2013) Discussion > The sex scenes ruined the realism of the...

The sex scenes ruined the realism of the movie.

posted 11 years ago by bebesushii
125 replies | jump to latest

I thought that the movie was very realistic in almost all aspects (even painfully so at times if I may add) but the unrealism of the sex scenes ruined it for me just a bit. Adele's sexual encounters with her first boyfriend and then Emma were nothing short of a porn flick. I don't have problems with nudity or sexually explicit scenes at all (before anyone calls me a prude and thinks that the problem lies in that) but these ones were painful to watch for me simply because of how badly they fit in with the rest of the movie. I loved the movie as a whole but whenever a sex scene would creep up I felt like I was watching something about the sexual encounters of porn star. Those scenes didn't portray a young girl who is trying to discover herself and her sexuality - at least in my opinion.
Now, I know that there are some people out there who would probably just watch this movie for the sex scenes (sad but true) and I'm wondering if the director did this intentionally to guarantee himself a larger audience. Since he managed to depict realism so well in all other aspects, it seems doubtful that he'd be so oblivious to the lack of realism in the sex scenes.

[–] DeusExKatrina 11 years ago

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. Those sex scenes may have been "real" but they were not realistic. They looked like typical porn or film sex scenes, not like sex scenes between two people who are having sex for each other and aren't on camera.

It ruins what is otherwise one of the most realistic films I've seen. To see some realistic sex scenes in there would have been really impressive but I guess they wanted them to be 'hot' sex scenes instead.

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"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame."

[–] d-vanderleer 11 years ago

I also fully agree with you and the OP. The sex scene was such a bummer. Expecially compared to the very childish dialogues on the school yard. An experienced lesbian and a girl who is in the arms of a woman for the first time do not have sex this way. Impossible!

Clear to me that it was made with the eyes of a man with a mission...

[–] BusyTitle 11 years ago

We don't even know wether this is the first time Adele and Emma have had sex together though. The movie jumps forward a lot, therefore it would be completely possible that this is their 4th time or their 80th time, we don't know.

[–] DeusExKatrina 11 years ago

Even if it is their fourth or eight-hundredth time, it's still the same problem: the director dropped the ball. It'd have been a lot more impactful (for me, if not everyone), and a lot more in the spirit of the rest of the film, to show the awkward first time, and to show it in a way that would have resonated with more people as being starkly intimate.

Just screen-wiping to full on porngasm was quite literally the least intimate way they could have done the sex scenes. Show us the build up that inspires them to jump into bed. Show us the fumbling as they rip off their clothes. Show us the morning after. Just pure sex with nothing else, truly is pornography.

A lot of people, certainly myself included, focus too much on the phony feeling of the sex itself, but that's not the real problem. The real problem is there's so much more they needed to show in order for this sex to feel genuine, rather than focusing solely on the sex and leaving out all of the ancillary details -- the kinds of things that really show a person's character.

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"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame."

[–] robbystoner 11 years ago

I agree with you. I am a hetero male and I like watching young beautiful 18 and 20 year old women rubbing against each other and having sex and I was fully aware that the film makers used and exploited that in order to get more people to see the film and to generate hype and "quasi" scandal. This is soft core porn made for males.

I completely fail to see how the length of the sex scenes between the two women enhanced the narrative or progressed the story. Look at it this way, if it had the same number of sex scenes but the sex scenes lasted 3 to 5 seconds on screen time vs 5 to 10 minutes on screen time, would it have lessened the viewers awareness that the two women had a sexual relationship? Would it have lessen the viewers awareness that the two women had entered into a highly intimate and emotionally intense relationship? Not all all. Its blatantly obvious that the two women were a couple and everyone knows that new young couples have frequent sex. It made no sense to put such lengthy sex scenes on screen other than to reel in male viewers into watching it and salivating over young womens bodies.

While I was watching the film I kept thinking, if the same film with same sex scenes had been done as a story about new young love between a 18 year old woman and 20 year old man -- just straight hetero story -- the film would have been a total dud and no one would have cared two hoots about it and just dismissed it as boring vanilla French soft core porn --- regardless of how great the acting or story was.

[–] SailorRainbowKittyKat 11 years ago

I always see it as this: why not have 10 minute sex scenes? Movies have had very long scenes of violence, staring off into space, crying. This is just another one of those scenes...that happened to be sex. Sex is always portrayed the same in movies...foreplay for 5 seconds, sex for another 5 seconds then cut to the bed where both parties lay under the covers. It's fake and boring. It was refreshing and eye opening to see them having sex, and for the amount of time they did. It gave it a realistic approach. It was thrilling and beautiful and hot...and I'm a woman in my mid 20s.

"They say hunger is the best spice" - Spike

[–] mgtbltp 11 years ago

It was soft core sex at best, get a grip.

[–] flickfix 11 years ago

the movie was very realistic in almost all aspects (even painfully so at times if I may add)

Just like to point out I agree with this too. This film is gut wrenchingly painful to sit through, but in a good way. Experiencing emotions without actually having to live through it.

[–] joey-tribbiani 11 years ago

Disagree. The sex scenes made you realise what was going on behind closed doors. Otherwise you'd never have grasped the intensity visually.

Sex on screen isn't always porn and porn is a different concept to sex in film.

[–] lola_mento 11 years ago

The problem for me was not the way it was performed or the length (this is probably the way most couples have sex and not how american movies portrait them, with their bras on and only in missionary position) but the way it was filmed.
It was like they hired a different director and cinematographer. It literally looked like a different movie

[–] bumblebee7311 11 years ago

I agree that the sex scenes (particularly the initial, extended scene) had a different feel and style, and arguably are weaker as a result. Nearly every other scene in the film unfolds at a very natural and slow pace (eating dinner, going to the club, in the classroom, etc). Each scene is allowed to breathe and is not forced. However, when we get to the extended sex scene the style suddenly changes - we immediately jump into one sexual pose and then cut to the next and to the next and so on. These poses are very stylised and are at odds with the feel of the other scenes. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the length of the scene, the poses themselves (who says lesbian sex MUST be performed one way or another) or that the sex is unconvincing or unmoving. Or that the scene doesn't ultimately fulfil it's objective in giving us a sense of the passion and intense intimacy between the two characters (it is important we are convinced of this so we, the audience, feel full impact of the emotional lows later in the film).

It can also be argued that the stylised nature of the sex scenes might be necessary in order to affirm the fact that we are seeing art and not pornography (even though clearly some people still saw it as gratuitous). It has been suggested somewhere else in this thread that the scene could have been portrayed differently, starting with the characters undressing, slowly caressing, progressing to a single sexual act perhaps. Maybe the director found this approach to be clichéd (it has certainly been done before), who knows..... Abdellatif Kechiche does talk about the sex scenes here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRlvYM--yVQ, but doesn't really shine any light on his decision process behind the style of the sex scenes or acknowledge they are different from the rest of the film.

[–] rasha777 11 years ago

i just saw the movie last night . after i heard so much about it . and i was gonna write a review that says a very long pornography , here is what i had in mind , i feel that the movie was 60 mins extra long at least but i was really disturbed by the sex scenes and yet again myself i don't mind nudity nor sexually contents but i felt like the sex was way too dirty for a movie . i haven't felt the passion i really like about movie sex , i only felt it was a girl on girl porn movie sadly .
and i feel like maybe it could have taken another twist .
and for her first time sexual encounter with another female , Adele knew exactly what to do and that was weird , it would have been much better to go easy on the exploration of her body .

[–] mgtbltp 11 years ago

(OP) Adele's sexual encounters with her first boyfriend and then Emma were nothing short of a porn flick.

Actually nothing short of a "soft core" porn flick, it needed more explicit "tongue in groove" action to be porn.

[–] lazarillo 11 years ago

No kidding. Have you guys ever SEEN a porn flick? This isn't even close. . .

I'm sure the sex scenes aren't realistic to American lesbians, but I don't think the director was strictly trying to please American lesbians. This isn't one of these movies that is just for one specific subculture.

I would compare this to "Y Tu Mama Tambien", which is not strictly a "realistic" movie about male bisexuals. All the on-camera sex is heterosexual and very few bisexuals probably have their first gay experience while receiving simultaneous oral favors from a beautiful woman. Still, the movie is about a lot more than sex and I think it makes male bisexuality (or "metrosexuality")more accessible to the straight viewer. I recall some of the more PC American queers being upset about that movie too at the time, but who cares?

Finally, "realism" is overrated. American lesbians may be so narcissistic that they want to watch movies that are strictly about THEMSELVES, but such a movie would put everyone else right to sleep. But if you liked the movie otherwise, can you not tolerate some girl-on-girl ass eating for the straight guys out there? It just doesn't invalidate the whole movie. You could also just watch "Go Fish" or some other movie no non-lesbian has ever had reason to see. . .

[–] foppejan2 11 years ago

It is quite ironic, as well as pathetic, that you feel the need to insert an entire paragraph about how "american lesbians are narcissistic", given that you're basically saying that you think sex scenes should be inserted in order to titillate you, "a hetero male viewer". And given this narcissistic view of what should drive directors, your choice to couch your statement that you think women should perform in ways that please you in an attack on "american lesbians" suggests to me that you are a member of the "male chauvinist pig" league.

[–] sagextc1 11 years ago

I agree wholeheartedly! I wrote a review on here and that was one of my biggest issues with the move. The sex scenes were also off the mark when it come to lesbian sex... woman don't have sex from behind, that's a man perspective right there... just for the simple sake of the physical positions... I've been having lesbian sex for many years and never have I give (or received) oral sex from behind with the other person in the same direction underneath or above me. Also the familiarity of Adele's part was no where near what it should have been, she would have not known what to do and/or would be too timid at that point in the relationship. This is definitely a mans' idea of how lesbians have sex... typical, they don't have a clue.