In one, it's night, and Marie's on foot. She passes a guy who mutters to her that he'll give her some money if she'll let him perform oral sex on her. She pauses, then assents. In an unbroken shot, he goes down on her for a bit, but then flips her over and semi-rapes her from behind. She claws the ground as he thumps away, but she doesn't try to escape. When he's done, he calls her vile names and hurries off. She yells after him angrily, "I'm not ashamed" -- yet by now she's just a wet, shuddering heap of flesh. Marie has kind of asked for what she's gotten, and has kind of not asked for it too, and is now both proud of and disgusted with herself.

For the spectator, the scene has heat, and messiness and complexity too. Breillat has carefully set up a number of dramatic skeins to give this scene its shuddery effect. Earlier, Marie, suspecting her boyfriend of having an affair, tracks him down, only to find him alone in a Japanese restaurant, eating sushi and reading Bukowski. She doesn't want to get home before him, so the passing stranger's offer has an appeal. Marie has spoken earlier about not liking to see the face of the man she's having sex with. And since being gone down on is like being worshipped, she anticipates that she'll feel in charge and exalted. But then she's up-ended, repelled and not in charge of anything at all, yet getting something out of it anyway. Like many other scenes in the film, it feels almost out of control, but it also perfectly fits in.

Breillat's approach also yields some beautiful close-ups. In one scene, a suave older fellow proposes tying her up. She doesn't respond out loud. Instead, she backs up against the frame of a door and bows her head. She can't say yes, but she wants him to proceed -- or at least she thinks she does. She's shying away, hoping he won't disappoint her, but she doesn't want to give him any help either. You see her furtiveness, her excitement and uncertainty. In other scenes, her face is swollen with longing and rage as she lies in bed next to her dud boyfriend. She's a misery junkie ennobled by her addiction. (These images are similar to some of Godard's in "Hail Mary," but Breillat's are more specific, and more charged.)

However much "Romance" resembles some male-made porn, the fact that it was made by a woman with high intentions changes the experience of watching these images and scenes. We aren't staring at them from the outside, so we have to wrestle with their content. These are facts of this woman's life, Breillat is saying -- and she's saying that maybe they imply something about women in general, too. Marie's adventures don't happen in the take-charge way we Americans have been taught to applaud. It's hard to think of a worse role model than Marie, and women who want to like or at least approve of a movie's heroine may find "Romance" hard to warm up to.

Marie sinks into passivity and masochism. She's released emotionally, at least somewhat and for a while, by bondage and thralldom. Sex here is presented as an occasion for pleasure, despair and shame, as well as for near-religious ecstasy. (Breillat wants us to acknowledge that, while sex can lead you into a sense of self-discovery, it's just as likely to leave you overwhelmed by loneliness.) The theme of "Romance" is a woman's relationship with her erotic being, and Breillat has the sophistication to acknowledge that if you don't feel good, that doesn't always mean you're doing something wrong; no relationship is always happy. In one long, daring overhead shot, Marie is on her back, in bed, naked and masturbating. The camera travels from her crossed ankles up her tense legs, over her crotch and torso (her hand is hard at work), past her neck muscles and veins to her flushed, glossy, straining face. In a voice-over that resembles interior monologue, Marie says that she isn't crazy about masturbation -- "It's only mildly satisfying, but it's proof I don't need a man." Ultimate blasphemy, to present masturbation as something other than a triumphantly can-do form of self-empowerment.

The slim, dark-haired, covertly pretty Ducey had only had a few screen roles before "Romance." The heightened and exposed way Breillat puts her on view is glorious but unsettling. There's a narcissistic arrogance in the way Breillat works, as there was in the way Bertolucci worked at the time of "Last Tango in Paris." (That's part of the excitement of their work.) Your anxieties about the performers in these movies become part of your experience of the film. When Marie is untied after being bound for the first time she bursts into wracking sobs. The man -- who a minute ago had sat before her, admiring the beauty of her trussed-up form -- now tries to soothe her, holding her in his arms and anxiously petting her damp hair. You wonder whether what you're watching is one actor trying to calm another after a scene has misfired; you half-feel that you're watching something that should have been an outtake. She wails and gasps and, finally getting a little hold of herself, says, it's OK, my hands were just beginning to go numb -- i.e. it's been Marie, not Ducey, all along. I can't think of a scene that danced so close to the existential edge since Brando's monologues in "Last Tango." Soon Marie is back for more. After playing with shackles and rope, she and the guy go out for caviar and vodka.

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