Love Rites (1987) | Cult Epics | (DVD) | SEALED

Title: Love Rites (1987)

Alternate Title: Cérémonie d’amour

Genre: Drama / Mystery / Thriller

Plot Synopsis
Hugo, a self-absorbed clothing buyer, encounters Myriam on a Paris train and becomes intrigued by her charm. When he discovers she is a prostitute, he believes he holds the upper hand — unaware that she guides him into a shifting world of dominance and submission. Their wandering through city streets, a sacral church, and finally into a hidden boudoir reveals that Myriam’s game runs deeper than mere physical liaisons. In the end Hugo finds himself stripped of identity and control, a spectator turned participant in his own undoing.

Cast and Crew

• Director: Walerian Borowczyk

• Writers: Walerian Borowczyk; André Pieyre de Mandiargues

• Cast:

  • Marina Pierro as Myriam Gwen

  • Mathieu Carrière as Hugo Arnold

  • Josy Bernard as Mériem Ben Saada

  • Isabelle Tinard as Nora Nix

  • Jacques Couderc as Unnamed Role

IMDb Link: Love Rites (1987)

Reviews from Letterboxd

1. dadafi – ★★★★★
   “Borowczyk’s last film is also the most overtly ‘bressoniac’: the sacrificial choice, the morbid erotism, the dense, obscure ‘space between’ and the ‘white voice’ of the possessed body (here the ‘theatrical’ labyrinthine dialogue plays the fetichism of the rhetorical device reduplicating the decoupage).
   “Some 90 years ago. It would be cowardly, if not dishonest for a red-blooded male, to ignore such an elegant invitation to debauchery…”
   Go, go, go!”

2. Filipe Furtado – ★★★★☆
   “That obscure object of desire. I’m glad Boro bows out with something as his as this. A variation on multiple pet themes, very close to Dr Jekyll and les femmes if less perfect crafted, but annihilatingly alluring all the same.”

3. Zoe – ★★★★☆
   “A cat and mouse game of desire that modernizes tragic lovers in such a mundane and beautiful way à la two sides of a subway station. The dialogue is pretentious and cruel, as it drags on you can feel the build up of her losing it. The twist was unforeseeable but the only way the story could end.”

4. maneleeo – ★★★☆☆
   “The last film by Borowczyk is a culmination of his previous work but without the craft and skill he usually deployed for his film. It feels like he wanted to go with a bang on the erotic level, without getting to anything more reflective on the human condition or even about s&x, which is itself part of the human existence, of course.”

5. Tim Timmermans – ★★☆☆☆
   “> “Do you happen to know who once said that an actress was half prostitute and half poet?”
   One day, Hugo is taking the Parisian subway and notices a beautiful girl. He takes the seat next to her and can’t help but notice she’s making small flirty gestures. All of a sudden, she gets out at one of the stops and the doors close before Hugo can follow her. He immediately gets off at the next stop and takes the train back. There, he still finds her at the platform. Her name is Myriam and she’s a prostitute.”

Meta Description:
An enigmatic Parisian drama by Walerian Borowczyk where a clothing buyer’s encounter with a mysterious prostitute spirals into a surreal journey of desire, domination, and identity.