Director explains why he made actors have real unchoreographed sex in his film that was banned after Cannes debut

A director spoke about why he had the actors in one of his films carry out real unchoreographed sex.

The film in question was banned from release in one country due to the graphic scenes.

Unsimulated sex scenes in films are, 99% of the time, a bit of a myth.

As realistic as the sex scenes may look, in nearly all cases it’s just a very clever camera angle combined with some sorts of prosthetics.

Despite this though, there are some incredibly rare cases when what you’re seeing on screen is totally genuine, and some household names have actually filmed scenes like that.

What is even more rare, however, is when the films featuring unsimulated intimate scenes aren’t some lesser-known B-movie, but films like Love by Gaspar Noe which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.

Noe is an iconic French filmmaker and, for his 2015 film Love decided to have the actors carry out the intimate scenes in the movie for real (and then showed it in 3D).

The movie follows an American man living in Paris, who enters into a relationship with an unstable woman.

The pair invite a third partner into their relationship and conflict, unsurprisingly, ensues.

Love debuted with a World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 and was subsequently banned for its graphic unsimulated sex scenes.

Noe had initially hoped for a well known pairing to star in the film and carry out the real sex scenes, Monica Belluci and Vincent Cassel, who at the time were a real life couple, but they turned it down.

Ultimately, the movie starred Karl Glusman, Aomi Muyock, and Klara Kristin.

The film sees the couple invite a third into their relationship (Wild Bunch)

The unsimulated sex scenes are shocking, including a 3D ejaculation scene which would likely make you duck if you found yourself in the cinema watching it.

When asked about the decision to film them for real, Noe told the Irish Examiner: “In what you call ‘adult movies’ there are no feelings at all. You never see people kissing or talking about pregnancy.

“You never see any girl having her periods and you never see a girl with regular pubic hair. It’s like a separate world that has nothing to do with normal life.

“What I wanted to do is represent in cinema something that’s important for me that for commercial reasons isn’t represented properly.

"The system of cinema rating is totally old- fashioned.”

As well as the film being outright banned in Russia, it had its age rating raised from a 16 to an 18 in France after campaigning, leading him to say in an interview with The Guardian: “All governments like controlling people’s sexuality. Whoever has the power has the power because they can castrate the people.

“There’s something chaotic in sex. When people start f*cking, there are no more classes – a p*ssy’s a p*ssy.”

Love is available to stream on MUBI in the UK.