Films which face head on themes of fetishism, masochism and fear have the potential to move an audience to a place where they would not expect to go, even with the knowledge that they are about to watch a film about the darkest corners of humanity.
La petite mort, the French idiom, refers to a calmness or melancholia surrounding the orgasm, but it does also refer to the orgasm in general and so the misnomic nature of the film can be forgiven. All three are fast, intense and short explorations of sexuality with barely any pace below frantic and very little concept of transcendence, the very meaning of the phrase "little deaths". Every orgasm we witness: the rape, the post-pub lust and indeed the post-poor-sex vibrator-induced are cheap, quick thrills.
Episode two, perhaps, could be excluded from this issue when a character describes the strange constant-orgasm state as being "not human", but equally it's not really about an orgasm at all, not as we know them. If episode two is analysing what a "little death" is, it is creating something non-human which renders it, although fascinating to watch, defunct.
The horror genre has the uncanny ability to disgust and deeply affect a viewer, and the only thing we ask in return is that it doesn't make fun of us, by drawing us to invest ourselves emotionally in the film and then being half-hearted with the storytelling. With Little Deaths, the half-heartedness is in the overselling of the idea. There was no effort to create empathy away from the bedroom-nature of the characters which basically renders the film no more than porn minus explicicity.
Furthermore themes of drug use, prostitution, and bondage and discipline, dominance/submission, and sadomasochism are all problematic. It feels as though the filmmakers are telling stories on these subjects because they want to and not because they themselves are invested in the activities. Dialogue regarding the drug use and prostitution in episode two does not read naturally and detracts from what is designed to be a naturalistic film.
More serious, though, is the motivation for the male lead's breakdown at the end of episode three. The filmmaker spends a great deal of effort in establishing that the sexual relationship is of bold and exploratory deviancy, and that the relationship between the two is one of a deep, and necessary, trust. With the line "I don't deserve you" and the subsequent reply, this trust is strongly established. There is no foreshadowing of the finale but for the use of dog-imagery and the main inciting incident is one which would, in a relationship such as theirs, not cause such a great stir but simply cause discussion and a break up, considering that there was little attempt to stop it at the time. Either there was a lot more hate felt for the female lead by the male lead, which we are not told about, or the narrative makes fun of the Dominant and submissive relationship by devaluing it.
The performances from the actors were strong and very well directed, which adds value to each story and ensures that we do feel empathy with each, and the cinematography was at times magical. Unfortunately it is difficult to maintain a relationship with this film and its characters, however aesthetically strong and empathetic, when there are such issues with its very core.
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