Q

Q, also known as Desire, (2011) is a French film about a young woman named Cécile.  After her father dies, in despair, she turns to promiscuity.  Her encounters include friends and strangers.  Sexual acts portrayed are fellatio, cunnilingus, intercourse and masturbation, both of self and others.  Filmed in Cherbourg, during the 2008 Great Recession, its characters are young people trying to survive through poorly-paid jobs or crime. An older married couple also figures in the story.  The characters’s frustrations and disconnectedness is the movie’s theme.  Surprisingly, it has a happy ending.  (Or perhaps not so surprisingly: the film is dedicated “To Cyril Collard, and to all those who still believe that love means something”).   Laurent Bouhnik wrote and directed.  Actors featured are Déborah Lévy, Hélène Zimmer, Gowan Didi, Christelle Benoit and Patrick Hauthier.  None of them have appeared previously in adult films.  

I thought that Q was a remarkable movie.  A mainstream film, it depicts sexuality openly.  The possibility existed during the Golden Age of adult films that sexuality would begin to be woven into mainstream films, instead of being hidden.  Unfortunately, this has rarely occurred.  It was refreshing, then, to see a movie that accomplishes this and so beautifully and matter-of-factly.  And it has a striking opening, repeated periodically: women in a shower talking but filmed only from the breasts to the thighs, in tones of blue and gray. 

A warning: Q is not subtitled in English.  With my rudimentary French I was able to parse the film, however.

A link to the movie, with Brazilian subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54yhhoqc6U&t=4786s