OMG, I forgot about La Romance! That film is just awful. Baise-Moi is actually better, which isn't saying much.

For example, here's an excerpt from an equally lame review of La Romance:

Quote:

The first scenes lay out an impeccably commercial fantasy of love. A young male model poses for the camera, costumed as a matador, so dashing, so masculine, so unapproachable. His pale, pretty girlfriend of three months looks on from the sidelines, as his flawless face is made up and his limbs are arranged to accommodate his red cape and a lithe female. The girlfriend, Marie (Caroline Ducey), appears wistful and proud at the same time, even a little awed, as she clutches a clipboard to her thin chest.

...The film takes her devastation seriously, in that it follows her efforts to find a suitable carnal and/or amorous replacement for her noncommunicative and apparently selfish beau. Marie finds temporary solace in the arms of the experienced and graceful but soon boring Paolo (played by international porn star Rocco Siffredi, star of the popular, low-budget "Buttman" video series). She then turns to the headmaster at the grade school where she teaches, Robert (Francois Berleand). Repeatedly referring to himself as "ugly" — as if this earns him extra points — Robert boasts about the many women he's had. According to Robert, he knows how to please his lovers, to excite and move them, to open up new horizons and push them on into some version of ecstasy.

Though he may sound awfully self-involved to us, Marie thinks he might be her ticket to self-exploration, or at least a way to get back at Paul. Robert introduces her to bondage. He hooks her up to a gizmo in his apartment with ropes, then gags her and bends her arms into exceedingly uncomfortable positions. At first she looks vaguely scared and titillated by his attentions: her eyes go wide, her breathing goes shallow. Then she's clearly in pain and begins to cry. Robert takes her down from the apparatus, soothes her with some light kisses and hair-smoothing, and invites her back for more. Marie does come back, dressed up in red. She also pursues more overt abuse, for instance, in an anonymous, violent sexual encounter on the back stairway in her apartment building.



http://www.popmatters.com/film/romance.html