How Much Do You Love Me

How Much Do You Love Me

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Aristotle
I live by this definition but the bard of Avon has enlighten me with so many definitions of love.

I will be happy to share a couple of them.

‘To be wise and love, Exceeds man’s might’ (Troilus & Cressida – Act 3, Scene 2)

Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, It was described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. This work   has in recent years "stimulated exceptionally lively critical debate".  The tone of this play lurches wildly between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, and readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how one is meant to respond to the characters.

I remember another line form Hamlet,

‘Love is begun by time, and time qualifies the spark and fire of it’ (Hamlet – Act 4, Scene 7)

Bertrand Blier the French director who is known for portraying the war between the sexes and he is eccentrically old-fashioned. He treat women characters as amusingly as they are insoluble mysteries and it is only an incidental relationship to the rest of humanity, that is, men. His 70s film Les Valseuses, was critic’s favorite for the same reason.

 I became curious when he wrote and directed the film wrote How Much Do You Love Me? for Monica Bellucci, he first saw her in Gaspar .Director Blier casts Bellucci as a whore in How Much Do You Love Me?, He scripted this role to  adore her, rather than demean her. Whenever a man tells Bellucci's Daniela that he loves her, she just smiles soothingly and says that's only natural. All men do.

"How Much Do You Love Me?" is a movie about an office worker who uses a lottery windfall to entice a prostitute into domestic bliss. Blier's take on beauty vs. shleppiness, mercenary seduction vs. true romance, and cash as a motivating factor in sexual desire is thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly protracted.

I remember her lines from an interview taken after the latest film On the Milky Road, she at rocking 50 starred in Bond film and now in ‘On the Milky Road’. This film took 4 years in making. She is known as total Italic curve in the world of World Cinema.

Monica Bellucci interview: 'Love and sexuality is a matter of energy not age'

When she is asked about her claim to be a feminist? She expressed, “Firstly, what does the word feminist actually mean? Often behind a badly behaved man is a mother who badly educated her son.”

I am stunned by this euphemism, as her character in the film "How Much Do You Love Me?," raises the same question.  I find that this film focuses on ‘Don Juanism’ as psychological complex. Where Bellucci's Daniela plays a liberal role of a whore who try to explore the definition of love from other character. Bellucci's Daniela character remains rock steady to male characters who are under the spell of ‘Don Juanism’ and ‘Othello complex’. It is a film which help you find the difference between attraction, love, greed, desire, responsibility and one’s own self.

Bertrand Blier is we find distinctive director known for his black humor and robust satirizing of sexual anxieties. His movies are nailed under art-movie and not mainstream. He always depicted absurd, cruel obsession in a fundamentally realist visual style. Bertrand Blier’s style of film making is reminiscent of Luis Buñuel; one might also compare him with the likes of Pedro Almodóvar, Paul Bartel, John Waters, Paul Morrissey and Geoff Andrew.