Romance (1999) - full transcript

He's coming

Let's do it

Look at me, Paul. Stand tall.
Brittle, edgy...

A matador understands death...
terror. A little anxiety...

Clara, look down,
be a bit submissive

Not too much!

A bit submissive to the man...

At three, you look at me.
It's all in the look

At three, rise up,
on your toes, and look at me

One... Two...

Three! Excellent!



You think this is easy for me?

You think I enjoy
seeing you unhappy?

I told you, I'm always like this

With other girls it lasted a week,
then for six months we did nothing

Really?

With you, it's lasted three months

It's all we've done,
night and day...

Don't overdo it

We never did it all night

Come on... We made love
over and over

I don't think so

In fact...

We never made love at all

Anyway...



I can cheat on you.
But you can't

No getting a hard-on for
another girl, if you don't for me

Have you cheated on me?

No

You're lucky.
You won't make me give up sex

I haven't cheated on you,
but I should have

What does that mean?

Look at me!
Have you ever?

Absolutely not!

That's how stupid I am!

You don't deserve
my loyalty

You know why you drink?

So you can pass out
whenever we get to bed

You only love me when
there's a table between us

Since we met, we've been
together every night

You sit opposite me every night.
And I'm never bored

Like I said,

you like me when there's
a table between us

It's insane! I sleep with a guy

who doesn't touch me!
You never touch me!

- We talked about that
- You promised you'd do something!

- Just wait!
- Until the end of the world?

You have to wait!

Maybe three more months!
There's more to life than that!

What are you doing?
You going?

No

It doesn't matter

Yes, it does

An invisible weight,

heavy, leaden, descends on me

A constant nagging...

Take off your T-shirt

I don't want to sleep
with a sack of cotton, I hate cotton

No. Get undressed
and come to bed

Why won't you take it off?

You know I hate it.
Why rub my face in it?

I'll take the shirt off,
but not my shorts

They keep my balls warm

It's nothing to do with you

I never thought
we'd be together every night

That's how it is

It's my fault too

I thought you'd have

other things to do
than see me every night

We'd be apart for two weeks...
a month...

You'd let me disappear

No

Not without staying in touch...

Not if you're in Paris when I am

You don't trust me?

I'll go

If you want, I'll leave

You'll never see me again

See what I mean?

We can't even talk

Come to bed

Take it off

I said it's nothing to do with you

I've always slept like this

It's everything to do with me!

It's because I disgust you

Don't!

I told you never to try that.
You'll only make things worse

But you're hard!

Stop it, or we're finished

It means you can

I'm not interested

Be nice. What's wrong with you?

If you couldn't get it up,
I'd understand

You've decided to stop making love,
just when I...

Watch out!
You want me to kill myself?

I've never done this with anyone.
I never touched them! Never!

It must be important to you.
You never shut up about it

So you don't want to,
you can't? I don't get it

Touch me. If you can't
get any pleasure, give me some!

Women can come more often
than men

If I did that, I'd despise you.
I couldn't love you any more

You despise me
because I'm a woman

You don't love me at all!

I disgust you,

I make you sick

You think I'm the dirtiest

Stop it

Come here

Why can I only love him
or hate him?

Why can't I feel indifferent?

But my head is clear

A man who can't love me physically

is a pit of misfortune,

an abyss of suffering

They say that a man who
screws a woman, honours her

The expression is worth noting:
it's true

Paul insults me

Do you mind?

Not at all

Here for a nightcap?

I just got up

It's true. I just got dressed

I can't stand sleeping,
so I got up

I don't give a damn about time,
I'm never tired

I hate people who fake tiredness,
to make endless excuses

You agree?

It's because they lack passion

You live alone?

No, I'm married

I told him I had a husband...

So he'd know I wasn't free

Because I'm not free

He has to understand
it's adultery

He's asleep. Sleeping
doesn't bother him at all!

He has to get up early tomorrow

A business appointment
in Deauville at noon

And you? You've got a girlfriend?

She died in a car crash

I haven't made love in four months

Maybe all men are like that

My husband's nice,
but he's not interested in sex

The first moves are
what I like best

It's delicious

I can never stop myself yielding

It surprises me each time

I watch myself giving in
as if it wasn't me

It's true...

I wanted another taste
of the miracle:

a stranger making love to you

It's a childish longing...

a pure desire...

Suck me

No. Not now

Maybe later, or tomorrow

Give me your phone number

You don't want to?

To blow you? Not really

It's not my speciality

I don't like to start with that,

I'd rather start again that way,
if you see what I mean

But going to a hotel,
I'm dying to do that

Now I have to go,
right away

- You don't want to go to a hotel?
- Of course, but I'm working

And I have to return the car

It's not mine

You'll call me?

Sorry I'm late

Don't worry.
I took the register

Good morning

Take out your grammar books,

and write today's date

Last week, we did the present tense

of the verb "to be"

"I am, you are, he is,

"we are, you are, they are"

Today, we'll do "to have"

"To have" isn't like "to be"

One can "be" without "having"

And one can "have" without "being"

I've been had

I've really been had...

I wish you were pregnant

No chance of that!

Why? It could happen

How? By the Holy Ghost?
You're kidding!

There's been no chance,
ever since I came off the pill

I know you hate details,
but dates matter

If you hardly ever do it, and never
on the right days, it won't happen

That's what depresses me

That's different

If you say it's a duty call,
no problem

- Really?
- Yes

That would change everything

If we had a child, it would make
sense to be together

It's because you've lost faith

It'll come back

It's like the Circean myth

You want to know what
lies ahead, what lies behind

You won't allow
the present to unfold

You force things...

You've lost faith,
and everything collapses

What if I left?

And didn't phone
for two weeks or a month?

Six months?

Would we be through?

That depends...

If you went to the North Pole,
or to a desert, maybe...

But if every time
you see a phone and say

"I won't call that dumb bitch",

and hang out in every bar
in my neighborhood,

I'd say we'd have broken up

I talk of freedom, you talk of bars

It's statistics

A guy needs to remake the world
with his pals in a bar, or he dies

You know I don't cheat on you

Maybe I'd rather you did,
and also screwed me

Anyway, I can cheat on you,
but you can't on me

You've already done it?
You talk about it a lot

No

But you deserve to think I have

OK

Tomorrow night,
I'm eating with Ashley

You can come, but you know
what I'd prefer

That I didn't come

I know I should give him space

But I need to cling to him
like a leech

Because I'm madly in love
with him

What he calls breathing
suffocates me

I never asked to be free

And I don't want him to be

I insist on absolutes

And I think I'm right

But when I apply them to life,

I fall to pieces. Schizo

He dances because
he wants to seduce

He wants to seduce
because he wants to conquer

He wants to conquer
because he's a man

What is it now?

You pull this shit because
I dance with some girl?

Not some girl, a slut!

Who gives a fuck about her?

Then don't give a fuck!

I won't have a kid with anyone else

I really have to wear one?

I haven't screwed in six months,
I don't have AIDS

You're getting better

You seem to enjoy it

You're almost triumphant!

You want me to watch you slip on
your condom

At first you hid

- Think so?
- I do...

I didn't dare look.
I don't like looking at cocks

Once they've been used,
they're revolting

Not very pretty

They are rather disgusting

It's like a Tampax. To screw,
you take it out discretely,

hide it under the bed
so the guy's not turned off

Guys are easily disgusted

Later, you have to get it back

I quite like disgusting things

Know why most guys
can't use a condom?

Their cocks aren't hard enough

It's as if, the rubber...

rubs them out!

I wouldn't know.
I don't sleep with guys

It's true. They go limp all the time

Because...

they're not really horny

Just like in porn films

Girls stuff limp cocks
into their mouths

They have to give blow jobs
because they're not really desired

A guy should take you
without a word

but he shouldn't

burden you with his inadequacy

Sometimes a blow job is fine

It's OK

When the guy could fuck you,
but won't

It's the torture of Tantalus

It forces you to admit

you can do that...

or even worse...

as long as he ends up fucking you

Most guys have cocks

that are short, thin, pointed

Pointed?

Like a dog's cock

I hate that.
Length isn't everything

Width matters more

A thin cock's ignoble

You want it up the ass?

Not yet

Screw me some more,
I haven't had enough

My boyfriend doesn't fuck me

How can you love a guy
who doesn't fuck you?

I don't love the guys who screw me.
I hate them

I don't want to see the men
who screw me

Or look at them

I want to be a hole, a pit

The more it gapes,
the more obscene it is,

the more it's me, my intimate part,

the more I surrender

It's metaphysical

I disappear in proportion
to the cock taking me

I hollow myself

That's my purity

You like your back being tickled?

No, I don't like tenderness

Or to be kissed on the mouth.
I couldn't stand that

I don't care who fills my cunt

But I can't kiss
someone I don't love

It's too intimate

But I kissed Paolo, I felt like it

When I kissed him,
I stopped thinking about Paul

So I decided to stop seeing him

It was a question of integrity

What are you doing?

Nothing. I have a class

You like my cock?

I like its smell

You're disgusting

No, it smells good

I like it that it's not too big

It fits in my hand,
and fits in my mouth

Why do you like it?

It's mine

I don't know

It's like a bird

Feels like I've got a bird
in my hand

You see, when you move like that,

it's as if it wanted to fly away

But it doesn't. That's touching

You mind that we don't go
all the way?

What I mind is you won't
let me touch you

I really resent that

I do let you touch me.
But not all the way

Don't worry,
I don't come either!

Dictation

"Winter Months"

"Everyone had

"settled for

"a life that was dull

"and orderly."

Full stop

"Then

"suddenly,"

Comma

"light

"burst forth

"once again"

Full stop

"Spring

"had come!"

Exclamation mark

I know, my spelling is awful

How did I pass my teaching exams?

Or get my driver's license?

I can't parallel park

That's not so serious

You're not behind me
when I'm double-parked!

I think I'm dis... lex...

dis... lexic

It's like with maths,
my reasoning was fine,

but I couldn't learn
multiplication tables

That's a problem

Nice place!

Surprises you?

It's small,
but there's nothing missing

Women want to see what
they've seen on TV

Sliding Japanese screens are in,
so that's what I have

Jacuzzis are in, so I've got one

For a small place,
it has everything: like a theatre

It's like a stage
where I can rehearse

I'm a classy bum
who's not handsome,

yet I've had over 10,000 women

Why me?

Because you have to talk to them

Nobody bothers to talk
to women anymore

I talk, they listen,
they're in the palm of my hand

Then I put my hand
in the right place...

without asking... So it goes

Somebody has to get things going

The only way
to be loved by women...

is through rape

Women yield easily to a stranger,

but play hard-to-get
with a wretch who loves them,

who'd die for them,
and swears he respects them

So it goes

But do they want to be respected?

In a sense, yes

But respect is
in the nature of things:

since they're up for grabs,
they want to be taken

I've had 10,000 women,
I don't remember them all,

but I kept their names,
their age and the circumstances

Women's cunts...

No two are alike

They're as memorable as faces.
But take ten men,

cut off their cocks, put them in
a basket: no one can tell his own!

I was on the radio

They wanted proof of my statistics

Yes, indeed

They counted them

Dr. Weil, a psychiatrist
and sexologist,

knows a true Casanova,
a super Don Juan,

a prince among seducers...

Why does she call me
a prince of seducers? It's absurd

I never seduced anyone,
any woman

I know I'm not very handsome,

I may even be revolting,

but the fact is,

I've had 10,000 women,
several per day

I've been a seducer
in the sense of se aductere:

to draw to one's self.
To seduce

Se aductere:
to draw to one's self

We checked him out

He kept a record of his conquests...

I've got something
that will interest you

I bought it, knowing some day
I'd make you read it

Here it is

Read me this sentence

One shouldn't lend books:
women should read to us,

so we know they've paid attention

I hate reading

Read it.
Women must read to us

"As the Mother begets the Son,
the Son begets the Mother

"His act is the creative
counterpoint of the whole process

"In begetting the Mother,
he purifies her

"He purifies her
and himself, uno acto

"He turns the Whore of Babylon
into a Virgin"

You're making me shy.
What's come over me?

Yet you're the one who...

No. I'm fine

You see?

I don't see anything

You're play-acting

I'm being myself

This kind of embarrassment...

Completely natural

...is really desire

It's part of the game...

to forget words
when they start to act

otherwise it's too easy
to tell them: "Hands off!"

That's what this is,

a trivial relationship,

a very shameful one

Why do men who disgust us

understand us better
than the ones we love?

There's a hole in your education

yet you're a teacher

Yes, a hole

There

You're amazed that
I'm fingering your pussy

but it's me doing it

I'm not aroused yet,

but you are:
you're amazed it's me

So it goes

Beautiful women
are taken by ugly men

That's a well-kept secret

There has to be action,

and the action isn't between man
and woman, that's too simple

It's between beauty and ugliness

Beauty feeds on degradation,
communes with it

That's where I come in.
I feast on it

So it goes

Don't blame me

You'd like me to dominate you?

Open your eyes

Shall I gag you?

It implies going further

than it's reasonable
for a woman to accept

She may have to go beyond
what she agreed to

You don't yearn
for what you can't accept

Physical love...

is the trivial clashing
with the divine

It's strange

Obscenity doesn't bother women

Does it hurt?

Take it off

I can't stand it...

I didn't realize...

You should've told me.
I thought we could go a long way

I can tie you up less severely

Or we can make love normally

I'm OK

It's me...

The problem is...

You know

Nobody ever tied me up before

I've never done it

Really? Never?

I always wanted to

We'll resume.
I won't tie you so tightly

No

It's fine

There's no other way

Really? Was it good for you too?

For me it was very beautiful,
truly beautiful

I want to give you pleasure.
When you cry, I panic

I feel I've done something wrong

No, it's fine

At first...

you feel your hands
going numb...

you think you can stand it...

then suddenly it's unbearable...

A way of dying...

a galloping death...

You think your hands
will fall off...

you turn slowly into dead flesh...

and then

it has to stop at once,
it can't last a second more

I was afraid you couldn't hear
because of the gag

It's really strange

But you liked the gag?

I don't like having to say things...

When I got home, Paul wasn't there

That caused my world to fall apart

It has nothing to do with what I did

What's done is done. It's behind me

My head is very clear

It's all I can count on

My head

My body feels like
it doesn't belong to me

It's an appendage, anonymous

In my head, there's Paul

He could have reconciled me
with my body

But he didn't want to do that

Because I didn't like my body

I was easy prey

A victim

Women are the victims
men sacrifice in expiation

I always masturbate
with my legs closed,

I rarely part them

I can offer myself to myself,

rape myself

It's mildly satisfying,

a bit nauseating,

but it's proof I don't need a man
if I have to resort to this

It was painful for me
to be on his bed

I felt like a piece
of lost luggage

The more time went by,
the less I could bear it

I had to cast myself out
on the streets like a wreck

Like a wreck,
belonging to anyone

The only thing I told myself,
like a two-bit equation,

was that if I'd cheated on him,

and still only loved him,

it didn't much matter
if he'd cheated on me

But he hadn't

It was worse

He was thrilled to be alone

Love between men and women,

I'll say it again,
is a devious conflict

There

If I get home after him, I've won

I know it. I'll have the edge

A tenner, just to eat you

That's my dream

To know that for some guy,
I'm just a pussy he wants to stuff

No sentimental bullshit

Just raw desire

To be taken by a guy,

anyone

A nobody, a bum

with whom you wallow
for the joy of wallowing,

for the dishonour, the shame

That's pleasure for a girl

- Turn over. Show me your ass
- Pay me!

You've got no choice, bitch!

You like me?

Slut!

Whore! Bitch!

I reamed you good!

I'm not ashamed, asshole!

Is nymphomania destroying
yourself because

you choose

the man who doesn't love you?

I don't want to sleep with men

I want to be opened up all the way.
When you can see that

the mystique is nothing
but raw meat, the woman is dead!

Maybe I really want
to meet Jack the Ripper

He'd certainly dissect
a woman like me!

Once again I hung around
for an hour

so I'd get home after him

Proof
that women are capable

of greater love than men

Much greater love

He's waiting for me, too

When I get home after him,
it's not as easy

The little guy's edgy

- I just got home
- Me too

So I see

But I just got home too

Sure... You wouldn't watch
crap TV for an hour

"A Love Affair deals with
an older man's obsession

with a young prostitute"

So he won't screw me...

"Maybe due to his education,

"women always seemed
alien to him

"He preferred the company
of his friends

"Women were from another world,

"somehow superior..."

My cunt is swollen, moist:
I can hold out forever

He won't beat me down this way

When he wants an evening
without me, I make the most of it

I get tied up

It's his fault

Shall I dominate you?

Want to tie me up?
Today you choose

I don't want to do anything

You like being tied up?

Yes, but not my elbows

Last time, my hands were numb
for two weeks

A month ago,
one elbow still felt weird

That's not normal.
You've got bad circulation

One day in Cannes,
I picked up Grace Delly

If I'd known it was her,
I wouldn't have dared

But she liked me and made a date
to meet at my place

She rings,

blonde, impeccable hairdo,

in a dog's tooth suit.
A bitch for a hound dog!

I screw her, love in the afternoon,

she leaves in fine spirits

Next day I see her,
I was with a friend

I tell him, "I screwed that woman"

He says, "You screwed Grace Delly?"

I just looked at him. I didn't know

See? I'm not handsome or wealthy

or even attractive,
but I screwed her

Later, I go over to her,

we have a drink, and I ask her:

"Why?"

"Why didn't you say
you were Grace Delly?"

She replied, "Would you have
behaved like you did?"

I guess not

You don't act like that
with Grace Delly

You wear kid gloves!

It's a pity! That was nice

Wait...

This doesn't hurt

Too bad, I don't have two

It doesn't matter

I'll do it this way

Raise your ass

I'll pull up your skirt

Like that

I'll spread your legs, OK?

I think you like it
when I spread your legs

Wait

I love it

There

That's nice

Now I'll put this on

Wait...

Help me!

That's beautiful!

You're lovely like that

You're very beautiful

Now I'll gag you

I enjoyed it so much,
I grew fond of Robert

Tying me up without tying me down,
was the secret of his ritual

After our sessions
I was never depressed. We giggled

We went out, ate too much

...the guy was flat broke,

so she said to him...

You want more caviar?

More caviar?

Waiter, please!

More caviar!

And vodka!

I love to drink

But I never get drunk,
or what they call drunk

Can we have
some more vodka?

You seem fine

You see your pals.
I see my girlfriends

I bet you badmouth us!

We badmouth you,
we do, we don't...

Help me?

Touch me

I can't. You kept them on

If that's all it takes...

Love is a bitch

It's just a power trip

A guy you're faithful to,
won't fuck you

Cheat on him, and he screws you

They don't guess you're cheating,

they sense you're getting away

My hands are dead.
I can't do a thing

Now what?
What are you playing at?

Why can't you see
I only do this with you?

I've never touched
anyone else's cock

Then why won't you
leave me alone?

Because you do nothing

Now you be me

You be the woman

I'll be your guy, I'll screw you

Can you believe it?

That's how that selfish bastard
got me pregnant!

Nobody came, not even him

He pulled a Virgin Mary on me,
with a drop of seminal fluid

Spread your legs.
Relax. There...

The neck is closed. Good.
The uterus is...

It's been eight weeks

Your turn

That's how I became a case study
for spotty interns

A slab of meat

Once you're pregnant,
they spread your legs

and peer all the way
up your vagina

Strangely I took
a bitter liking to it

As I'd made a truce with Robert

while I was pregnant,
nobody else touched me

My monthly visits
were the only sex I had

I'm uneasy on an exam table,
I resent spreading my legs

That's why it upsets me:

I'm a bit of an ice-maiden

I see why the Chinese used
an ivory dildo to probe you

Though even that's distasteful

Porn movies, too,
protect your libido.

You watch a surrogate image

But what you can't tolerate in life,

you can't tolerate in images either

An image is just as compromising,
since it stands for you

Very good

Paul is right

You can't love a face
when a cunt tags along

Cunts and faces don't mix

I fantasize about a brothel,

where heads are separated
from bodies,

by a machine like a guillotine

before the blade comes down

Of course, there's no blade

I wear a silky red skirt
that billows up and rustles

And those silly trappings
that give men a hard-on

It's proof a hard-on
doesn't mean they love us

Paul is right,
being a woman has a fatal flaw

If she gets you hard,
you want to screw her

Wanting to screw her
is to despise her

Love between men and women
is impossible

Men you can't see,
you imagine coarse and ape-like

Aziz, look at my cock!

As if crudeness
is all one can expect

There we see the head

That was the spine

The femur

Want to know what it is?

It's a boy

Fabulous

You want me to marry you?

Yes

That night, Paul made love to me
for the first time in ages

And for the last time

From then on he dragged me
around like a ball and chain,

a duty he had to endure

We went out every night

with his sister
and brother-in-law

Now that I was
the mother of his son,

I'd met his whole family

You OK?

Two whiskies!

- You OK?
- Fine

Want another drink?

Later

Please don't make a scene

Don't worry

I felt like dancing,
so I grabbed a girl

I almost kissed her,
she was so hot for me

Then I dumped her where
I picked her up

She never knew what happened

You can't complain

I didn't

But you wanted to

A whisky, please!

You two fallen out of love?

You look like a couple of squares!

Sit down

Feeling tired?

I'm fine

She's my sister, but I'll tell her

A man likes a challenge

He hates being followed around

He needs to fear he may lose her.
Then he chases her

Or chases someone else

A man's always chasing

You agree?

You and your chasing's a bore

The bastard!

He leaves me alone
with the fear

that soon my vagina will open
and spit out the baby

Wake up!

I'm sick of your boozing!

You slob!
You stupid tart!

Coming down

What's going on?

You'll like it

Get on the table.
Wait for the contraction to pass

Breathe deeply

Breathe. Once it's over,
get on the table

- The father can't stay
- Yes, he can!

Don't I get an epidural?

It's too late,
your baby's being born

Ready? We're going to push
the baby out. Breathe in!

Breath in! Hold your breath,
grab the bar

Push hard! Again!

As hard as you can.
Hold your breath. Again!

It's incredible to create life

Breathe in!

Hold your breath and push

Go on!

They say a woman isn't a woman
until she's a mother. It's true

Nothing that happened
before really matters

For Christine Pascal

I gave my son his father's name

If someone up there's
counting souls,

then we're even

Subtitles: Gorse

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