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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
entertainment or endurance?, March 25, 2004
Love it or hate it...This is a movie which generates extreme reactions. Lulu starts her sexual adventures in her early teens, marries a man who leads her down unusual sexual avenues and who finally gets her to have sex (unknowing and blindfold) with her brother. When she discovers this, she leaves him and launches into a sexual odyssey, involving sex with gay men which sees her end up as a (largely unwilling) exhibit in an S&M show. So the question, as ever, is... is it art? Or is it just exploitation, and if so, is it sexy enough that we don't mind? Some have criticised it for being too explicit. Others of my acquaintance have criticised it for not being graphic enough (particularly where the BDSM is concerned - `totally unrealistic' was a comment from one friend who knows about these things). Viewed in one way, it could well be considered pretty gruelling: the process of watching Lulu's sexuality take over her entire persona and life can get a bit unsettling at times. More than one person has described it as a turn-off, a puritan warning of the consequences of sexual liberation masquerading as an erotic story. Whether or not that's true, Lulu's character comes across as fundamentally damaged rather than in control of her life, and that's uncomfortable. Safe, sane and consensual? Aught from three, I'm afraid... Whatever, it still ends up as the kind of story one flicks through to get to the naughty bits, rather than one you stay with all the way through.
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