Irish Film Institute -Too Much Flesh

Too Much Flesh

Co-directed with Pascal Arnold, Too Much Flesh is the second instalment in Jean-Marc Barr’s trilogy on freedom. Lovers dealt with the freedom to love, and the new film deals with the freedom of sexuality. Shot in English, Too Much Flesh is set in present day Illinois, where 35-year-old Lyle (Barr) lives chastely with his buttoned-up fundamentalist wife (Rosanna Arquette). Lyle discovers his sexuality with a passing stranger (Elodie Bouchez), but the couple’s affair outrages the puritanical community and creates mayhem in a society embedded with hypocrisy and puritanical ideas. According to Barr and Arnold, their film is designed to pose questions about personal and social attitudes towards sexuality. Today, say the filmmakers, the notion of physical pleasure is often portrayed by a sexual attitude or behaviour that is expressed in the extreme. We have chosen to illustrate it through the portrait of an innocent character who approaches sexuality on the simple basis of sharing pleasure, whose senses are keen in his carnal discovery, and who is playfully greedy with his impulsive appetite.

France, 2000.
Filmed in English.
Colour.
Dolby digital stereo.
110 min.

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