User Reviews

This is a very difficult title to review. On one hand, so much of this film does it right - the cinematography, the acting, the very real sex scenes. But on the other hand, there's also a lot that this film gets wrong (pacing, character motives, etc) and it in turn results in a rather confusing story that is never truly solved by the end. The film is beautiful to look at, and I've never quite seen unsimulated sex presented in such a way on screen, except for maybe the film Love, so that was somewhat of a treat to see play out since I was not expecting that. However, the cons of the film outweigh the pros, and the film never really gets to the point and leaves the viewer to analyze these characters on their own. Sometimes that's a good thing, but in this case, it's just frustrating. Especially after a majority of this film centers on a very frustrating premise as well as long (and I mean excruciatingly long) scenes of construction work and lingering exterior shots; the film should by no means be as long as it is. Overall, this is definitely not one of the worst gay films I've seen but it's also nothing to gush over.

Was interesting. Seemingly dark and intense, graphic scenes that would shame. And filmed in a very arty way. Like a media studies student on final exam...

However it just stops... There's no end... I suppose it's art imitating life, but seriously I like my films to have an end...

Ok movie the storyline?

There is no explanation, there is no explanation towards the end of the movie, there is no explanation about the ending and it's a bit too long.

I feel it as a personal experience. Because it is wise crafted, honest in profound manner, shocking for direct manner to explore a relation and for fair use of bitterness and close cinematography, for acting and for the feeling after. An appartment, two men - a French man and a Russian artist -, a mix of sado - masochism and addiction, frustrations of one , ended with a terrible revenge, the deep loneliness of the other , losing his mother, accepting cruelties of the other,large slices of love - affection-loneliness- experiences and little more and something very emotional, escaping to words, descriptions, verdicts. Short, just a special film or, more simple, an experience. Inspired music,the building site as frame and metaphor for story, clashes and the cold end. And a lot of fantasies, experiences, desires maybe, in some measure, to familiar.

I'm afraid I'm going to review at variance with nearly all of the other contributors here. For me, this was boring, stultifying, humdrum. Perhaps what made it worse was that I'd been given the censored version of the film which meant that the utterly monotonous snapshots of the main characters' lives weren't even leavened by a bit of nookie.

I found the themes unpleasant and not something that drew me in, quite the reverse. And I'm not a prude!

Even the truncated version I saw was far too long. There were so many interminable shots of cityscapes and construction. This was just self-indulgent. Someone competent could have cut this down to ninety minutes even having included the deleted sex scenes.

As a recommendation, it's a big fat no-no.

This is a gay-themed, French spoken arthouse film, so next to a serious story you might expect some male nudity and sex. Here however the latter by far predominates, while the narrative is enigmatic, the pace is for the most part extremely slow, dialogues (if any) are scarce, and apart from the many sumptuous sex scenes the screen time is mainly occupied by endless background-images of a building-compound in a snow-covered Canadian city; scenes with real meaningful (non sexual) action are only few and incomprehensible within the context of the (supposed) story.

We see a guy force his way into the apartment and the life of the guy that owns the apartment, and they develop a sado-masochistic relationship. There are no names, there's no kindness or affection, just raw sex. The movie does provide for each of them a tiny bit of background: the one is an injured acrobate in some sort of trapeze act, the other regularly visits a sick mother in a nursing home. It's totally unclear what these sub-plots mean for the story or add to it, or maybe I missed tons of metaphors. The two in the end have a fall-out, again totally unclear why. The very last scene is obviously meant to leave us puzzled at what might have happened, as we see the owner leave the apartment building while police is entering it.

Both characters are extremely unsympathetic, so you couldn't care less what happens to them. I guess I should call both actors brave for doing all these very graphic sex-scenes, but in fact I can only wonder at what they, as well as the director, think to achieve with this. It simply is not a nice or involving or even an interesting film to watch, it just impresses as basically a gay porn movie, alternated with some vague other scenes to fill up the time. I'm gay, I'm no prude at all, and I like sex, but there are a zillion sites on internet for this kind of material, there's no need for a wannabe arthouse film as an excuse.

Streamers Beware: Amazon Prime, Dekkoo, and Google/YouTube heavily censor the explicit scenes in this movie. These are the only platforms I've checked, but it's likely other streaming platforms censor this title as well.

Even if and/or when robbed of a proper virgin viewing of this film, the rating still stands. L'Acrobate is deeply hollow, bleak, cold, and realistic, yet maintains complexity and emotion. It manages to abandon nearly every cliché leaving you with harsh reality, but not without exploring the strange, beautiful, and fleeting moments of humanity and animalistic sexuality. The characters of this film are portrayed so vapidly and deeply at the same time.

Mesmerizing cinematographic shots accompanied by an increasingly anxious score pull you deeper into this film. The queer culture desire for anonymity intertwined with connection are well defined. Self-desires and self-criticisms make us our best and our worst. It's a temporary solution to moving forward in the continuing cold and bleakness that loom around us.

The 2 hours and 14 minutes were cut to 2 hours and 6 minutes in the version we wasted time on. BORING. The movie opens with 20 minutes of watching cranes at a construction site and goes downhill from there. The alleged sex scenes were badly cut.

I agree that this film is part of a new way forward in Queer/Gay cinema. It follows on from ' Sauvage ' and ' Theo et Hugo ' in its emotional and sexual power. It shows and it needs to be shown that the sexual organs are just another part of the human anatomy and that the day of the Garden of Eden fig leaf is ( or should be ) over. It is also in my opinion dealing with the disparity of the rich and the poor and the sado-masochistic relationship that can develop when the two collide in what is here a non-love story. Sebastien Ricard and Yury Paulau are hypnotically good, detailed in every gesture, and are starkly human in contrast to the inhuman world around them. It is such a blast of fresh air in film that I am still in awe of what I have seen. Essential Cinema.

I saw it by accident , It is so intense , so artsy , acting is good , like I live in cold big city , looking for warm feeling , even this is a short time . and every sex scenes is very unique , haunted beautiful ,

The plot is realistic and believable. The acting is good, the cinematography is perfect. The sex scenes are real and this gives it that feel like you are listening to a friend's story.

One of the best queer movie I've ever seen. With mainstream actors in unsimulated scenes & the overall background..that's what it is needed. keep bringing more of these and you would have your fair share of success & audience.

I had the opportunity to view this remarkable new French-Canadian film and it left me wanting more. I was totally taken by the intensity and sexual tension between the two main leads. A careful, even at times subdued performances created a sensually charged atmosphere and I was captured by it instantly.

Without giving away too much, I would say that finally we have reached the age of honesty and truth in gay filmography. At times I did not believe I was actually seeing such level of intimacy from the leads. It was a completely new experience for me. It was not cheap or sleazy affair. On the contrary, I felt the characters as if I was in the room with them. To be able to take one's viewers right into the scene takes a lot of talent from the director and the actors. it is a unique achievement. Simply put, I believed them.

I hope that we will see more of Yury Paulau - a new discovery of this feature - and Sébastien Ricard - who is a seasoned actor with many titles which I venture out to find now.

Rodrigue Jean, the director, made a courageous, honest film and I applaud him. Needless to say I will be looking for his previous and hopefully future work.

Go and see this film. You won't be disappointed.

The film expresses both men's softness and stubbornness. I like these expressions of sexual, love and hatred. Micha is a Stubborn one. P. S. The structural aesthetics and color aesthetics in the film are suffocating! It's slow,but beautiful and calm.

I first watched this film last year and didn't totally get it. Now I'm able to embrace it more.

The use of explicit sex is really on point, which is quite a rare case among the films with the same approach.

Brave filmmaking. And shout-out to the two leads, they did a tremendous job.