“Fire changes into itself what is added to it, which becomes its own nature. The wood does not change the fire into itself, but the fire changes the wood into itself.”

Meister Eckhart, Sermon 65.

I thought “Irreversible” (2002) by Gaspar Noé was a difficult film (tough to watch without averting your eyes) but “Love” (2015), despite its simple and alluring title is no staightforward sitting it out either – and at times there is little else to it but just that. To put it bluntly: there is an awful lot of real-time sex in it which tends to bore a menopausal woman like myself; but then again, it would defeat the arthouse experience if it had done anything else to anyone else; it's not meant to arouse your own libido, but rather to make you reflect (or even cringe at) what it was all about when you were young; or what it never really was; or the mistakes you may have made or may not have been able to avoid making.

The poster may mislead you, but let me assure you that I am probably (also considering the age of the director) snugly within the target audience of "Love". Let's not forget the title throughout all that (maximally) explicit sex. I think at 30 I would have felt the love. At 50, I see only infatuation, self-indulgence, obsession and layer upon layer of naive hubris. And above all: the lack of purpose.

It takes some intellectual prowess to remain interested in the film as a contemplation of the complex inductions that can be made on the topic of sexual maturation – or down fall - of the young individual. I guess the film asks: what’s the purpose of sex while it lasts? What memories does it form? What is the power that makes them last?

Looking back, what remains?

• What will you make of your first “true love” at fifty? Was it necessarily a sexual love? If so, why did it have to be so sexual?
• Will you have stayed together forever like you assumed you would? Is fervent desire worth anything in the long run? That incipience without which nothing would ever have been possible?
• Will anything ever make you fly as high and act as much in synch with the prompting of your heart? Was there any heart worth mentionoing in it? Was it only lust? A bio-programme designed for procreation? Is lust that Fall that makes you lost in the maze of your invention; that woods you find yourself in like Dante at mid-life?
• When is sex not a drug? A means to an end? When does it become an intimate tool between souls for the sake of spiritual advancement? Perhaps, this is in its quintessence always the case? (But then, what baby steps of advancement, at all!)

You've got to end up admitting it's an infallible programme so far, though progressively, ever more cumbersome to the independent individual questing for the meaning of life.

Too old for hanky-panky and fantasy?

Clearly, we all know already there is not a (commercial) niche in society not laced by the sexual nature of the young. We also lament how this aspects but a tiny non-skill of the human potential range. I personally ended up with a curious after-thought that saw a new divide of the human race; first I saw the camp of men versus the one of women causing so much divide; now I note how far apart the camp of the young and the old stand.

Is sex the wood it takes to start the fire?

I suppose I would like to substitute for old “mature”, especially since the analysis of sexuality is about a coming of age for the soul-spirit that is designed in humans to overrule the natural instinct to progenerate or give in to baser programmes (setting sexual desire alongside hunger or sleep).

Am I saying old people don’t care about sex anymore or, rather, the spiritually advanced can do without? At 49 I wouldn’t have been so bold as to imagine this possible, but at 50 I see there is a head start to be gained from early abstinence or even asceticism that comes with most world religions, or spiritual disciplines. The question then becomes what function did sex ever have in your life? Had sex taken less of a prominent place in your younger life, would you have primed your will into a sharper tool, with which to build a larger temple to accommodate a better heart?

Sex on or in the temple?

Tantra is something else than a sexual appetite for the flesh of another and the intoxication of one’s own senses: it is a frequency that draws you towards beauty and truth.

In this light the kama-sutra depictions on the Hindu temples seem to say: leave that of the senses and the sentimental outside when entering the realm of the spiritual. Not as forbidden fruit, but like shoes that serve you on the outdoor path, but which you do not need in a spotless house of dedication to the spirit. Okay, let’s not think about those temples dedicated to rats or monkeys… Or let's indeed think of them as soulful places to be sure, but definitely not yet the tranquil, transformed realms of spirit. Observe the difference between soul and spirit and wonder what path to follow that might interlace them into a new and exclusively human format.

(Foix, a Cathar Castle in France →)

There are plenty of cults which have integrated sexuality as a way to understanding the meaning of life, and a higher, nobler way of life. Sex on the altar is as old as the building of temples. There is an intuition within man, a deep inner hearing, that recognises something valuable in the tools that belong to a human being’s sexuality. Afterall, is not all made by divine (cosmic) design, including the physical body, the mind and the heart’s fire? Or are the Gnostics (and Cathars above all) right to recognise wicked temptation and refrain from incorporating their sexual tendencies?

In any case, sex is never so simple as being either natural and healthy or magical and exalting.

It's the stuff more films should be made of; but be warned it's going to take a star artist to make something worth watching without falling into dreary and rather stodgy repetition.

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credits

• An unopened spiral bud of a morning glory flower, Ipomoea purpurea, By tanakawho - Flickr, CC BY 2.0
• More Cathar castles here: http://www.cathar.info/cathar_castles.htm