Revealed: the 3D sex odyssey set to scandalise Cannes

Few directors become the talk of Cannes with little more than a film title and a poster. Yet with his explicit 3D sex odyssey Love, which has a midnight screening at the festival on May 20, Gaspar Noé has done just that.

It's nothing new for Noé, whose previous films have been known to leave shocked cinema-goers requiring medical attention. 

With only tidbits of the film’s story released, and posters so graphic they should come with a Not Safe For Work warning attached, here's everything we know about Love so far.

1. It’s an ode to sex

Noé has said that he consciously made Love a celebration of sex to counter the frequently dark and moralistic portrayals seen in traditional cinema. "Of all my films," he wrote in the Cannes programme notes, "this one is closest to what I have been able to know of existence.

“The only violence in the whole film is how people who are madly in love insult each other."

It appears to be a change of direction, then, for a director who gave audiences a 30-second warning to leave the cinema before the close of his 1998 film I Stand Alone. (The film ended with scenes of incestuous sexual abuse.)

2. ...shot in 3D

Noé has said that he wanted his film to offer an immersive experience of sex, and coupled with his existing fascination with 3D, he decided to make the shift into the other dimension. “I felt that 3D would allow the viewer a greater sense of identification with the lead character and his nostalgic state," he explained.

Noé added that he regretted not shooting his last film, Enter the Void (2009), in the medium, particularly a point-of-view sequence that travels up a woman’s fallopian tube.

3. Two of the film's stars haven't acted before

Aomi Muyock, a Swiss model (pictured above), and Klara Kristin both make their screen debuts in Love. Noé talked about his casting process in a 2014 interview with Bomb magazine. "I’ve been slowly preparing my next movie, which is a very sentimental erotic film," he told the artist Matthew Barney. "So I’m meeting kids – girls and boys – and I will continue for quite some time."

The male lead, Murphy, whom Noé describes as “the ultimate 3D baby-maker", is played by American actor Karl Glusman.

Glusman, who was born in the Bronx and grew up in Oregon, may be on the cusp of fame. His current CV includes stints on the stage as well as minor roles in TV dramas and short films, a small part in a tech-themed slasher movie called Ratter, and some offbeat dance performances pieces such as Consilience, shown below.

But in the next few years Glusman will be seen in Roland Emmerich’s gay rights drama Stonewall and Nicolas Winding Refn’s LA-set horror The Neon Demon.

4. It takes place in Paris

Murphy is an English-speaking character living in Paris as a film student. It is here that he meets Electra, with whom he enters into a life-changing love affair.

5. It’s told in the past tense

Not one for conventional narratives – Irréversible opened with the story’s horrific conclusion – Noé has filmed Love in flashback form. The story opens with a present-day Murphy receiving a phone call from Electra's anxious mother, which draws him into memories of his insatiable affair with her daughter.

6. There may be walkouts when it screens

Two-hundred-and-fifty people walked out of the Cannes premiere of Irréversible in 2002, with many of them leaving even before its notoriously disturbing rape scene. Enter the Void and I Stand Alone sparked similar reactions at festivals and screenings.

Early reports from the blog Paris Match hint that Love's opening sequence will result in similar walkouts. Noé has publicly expressed his hope that this is a film “to make girls cry and give boys hard-ons.”

7. Its US distributors want to show it uncensored

Alchemy Films has picked up the US rights to Love, and the company has said it "will do everything we can to protect this masterful film".

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Love might be released unrated: the strategy Lionsgate adopted when it distributed Irréversible. However getting the film into cinemas which are set up for 3D may be a challenge; and it's unclear whether Netflix, which hosts Alchemy titles, will show an uncut version of the film.

8. But they might have trouble showing the posters

Four posters have been released for the film so far. The one above is the least explicit.