Room in Rome

I recently saw Room in Rome, a film by Julio Medem and starring Elena Anaya and Natasha Yarovenko.  It's the story of a chance meeting that turns into a passionate love affair that takes all of one night.  It's a lovely film and I've been thinking about it for a couple of days.

Natasha is the blonde

It required a lot of bravery on the part of the two actresses-- they spent about three quarters of the film naked.  The film never leaves the hotel room and there's only one other, minor character, so the film depends on their work-- and the script.  They start by one attempting a seduction and the other fleeing, then coming back; they tell stories about themselves that turn out not to be true; they make love several times; they become increasingly honest as well as conflicted about the rest of their lives, which suddenly seeem to fall short.

It's erotic, but even more so, it's romantic.  After seeing it I wanted to cuddle wtih someone.

Natasha (the character) is straight, and begins by saying that nothing should leave the room; to which Elena (whose character is lesbian) reasonably asks how she can be sure it won't.  Much of the story is a set of moves and countermoves where the characters get closer and closer and then take half-steps back.  The structure of the movie more or less demands that they separate at the end  (a crossing-of-lives story is far different from a beginning-of-a-romance story), but one can imagine that perhaps they were unable to maintain that separation afterward. 

There's a little echo of b/d... at one point Elena carefully dresses Natasha after a bath, like a servant, and Natasha reciprocates.  At the end Elena points out that she kissed Natasha's feet, and Natashs didn't do the same.  It's a reminder that the submissive impulse starts in love, in a delight so deep that it finds joy in service and even humiliation.  (Not that this feeling is always there.  But there is a special thrill when it is.)

Anyway, if you're the sort of person who is reading this blog, you'd probably enjoy it.