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THE NAMES OF LOVE

What You Need To Know:

THE NAMES OF LOVE is an on-again, off-again love affair between Arthur, a government bureaucrat plagued by guilt over his abandonment of his mother’s Jewish heritage, and Baya, the daughter of a Muslim handyman who paints and a left-wing French mother. Though rather stuffy and prim, Arthur always votes for the radical socialist candidate. He learns fairly quickly that Baya sleeps with right-wing men so she can convert him. She literally lives by the slogan, “Make love, not war.” This makes Arthur jealous, but he can’t stay away from Baya because, unlike the other men, she really likes him. Just when it seems as if the two of them may get married, Arthur’s Jewish mother dies, and he breaks off their relationship. However, can he stay away for good?

THE NAMES OF LOVE is a zany comedy that won a couple awards in France. However, it offers a Romantic worldview supporting a world without borders, beyond nationality and ethnicity. Apparently, the goal is to offer some kind of non-capitalist socialist utopia. THE NAMES OF LOVE also has plenty of strong foul language, strong sexual references and other explicit, excessive content.

Content:

(RoRoRo, SoSoSo, ACapACapACap, PCPCPC, RHRH, H, LL, V, SS, NNN, A, D, MM) Very strong Romantic, socialist, anti-capitalist, utopian, serio-comic worldview arguing for a politically correct multiculturalism where everyone puts aside their cultural differences, plus strong revisionist history posits that European colonialists were the only ones engaging in torture and terrorism, man says he’s not religious, and jokes are made about woman calling everyone right of center a fascist; about 16 or 17 obscenities, including a few “f” words, and no profanities; light violence includes child makes drawings of executions and slapping, plus photos referring to the roundup and execution of Jews during the Holocaust but nothing graphic shown and images of dead birds as protagonist investigates possible bird flu outbreaks; strong sexual content includes briefly depicted sex in a couple scenes, implied sex in a couple scenes and left-wing female protagonist says she sleeps with right-wing men so she can convert them; full female nudity in two scenes, shots of upper and rear female nudity, and upper male nudity; alcohol use; smoking; and, strong miscellaneous immorality includes deceit, lying and people marry illegal aliens to help them escape the law.

More Detail:

THE NAMES OF LOVE is a French comedy that, as the Marxists would say, mixes the personal with the political. It plays like a combination of one of Woody Allen’s earlier romantic comedies with one of his more political later movies, mixed with the radical chic of Marxist French director Jean-luc Godard, who coined the term “Cinemarxism” in one of his 1960s movies. The left-wing attitude in THE NAMES OF LOVE is light, however, not extremely didactic.

Basically, the movie is about an on-again, off-again love affair between Arthur, a government bureaucrat plagued by guilt over his abandonment of his mother’s Jewish heritage, and Baya, the daughter of a Muslim handyman who paints and a left-wing French mother. Though rather stuffy and prim, Arthur always votes for the radical socialist candidate. He keeps running into Baya, and they finally go to bed together. Eventually, he learns, however, that Baya enjoys sleeping with right-wing men so she can convert him. She tells Arthur that she literally lives by the slogan, “Make love, not war.” This sends him into fits of jealousy, but he can’t stay away from Baya because, unlike the other men, she clearly wants to be with him for no other reason than she likes him.

Just when it seems as if the two of them may get married, Arthur’s Jewish mother dies, and he breaks off their relationship. The question becomes, can he stay away for good?

Throughout their bizarre, humorous relationship, the two lead characters (and the movie itself) are obsessed with their ethic backgrounds. The right wing characters are seen as fascists who want to pigeonhole people into their ethnic identities. Thus, the movie stresses the fact that both main characters come from mixed ethnic backgrounds.

Ultimately, therefore, the movie offers a Romantic worldview supporting a world without borders, beyond nationality and ethnicity. Apparently, the goal is to offer some kind of non-capitalist socialist utopia. Fat chance!

THE NAMES OF LOVE also has plenty of strong foul language, strong sexual references and at least two extended scenes of explicit full female nudity.