Savauge: Heartbreaking Melodrama, or Well-Shot Porn?


I’m not quite sure how to feel about Savauge. On the one hand, it’s a well shot, well-acted film that’s incredibly aesthetically pleasing and offers a tragic tale that will haymaker-punch you in  the heart down to the last second. On the other hand, it’s essentially explicit gay porn, with full frontal nudity from its actors and all. The pornographic elements pull no punches either, as the sound designers have made sure you the viewer can hear every swallow of semen. I get that the film’s leads were male prostitutes, but I felt the film’s desire to get as explicit as it possibly was quite distracting from the emotionally weighty story this film was trying to tell. This isn’t to say that this is a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the contrary; when this film’s plot can climb above the mountain of penises, its character interactions and cinematography are impressively emotional.
6.9/10
·      Producer: Emmanuel Giraud
·      Director: Camille Vidal-Naquet
·      Cast: Felix Maritaud, Eric Bernard, Nicolas Dibla, Philippe Ohrel

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