Maritaud in Sauvage | Photo: YouTube/Broken Rainbows
Camille Vidal-Naquet’s brand new film Sauvage earned some critical acclaim at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It also earned the distinct film festival honor of going so far people walked out in the middle of the screening.
The first trailer for the film is here and people can now get an idea of what it’s about.
Sauvage follows Leo, a 22-year-old gay male prostitute in France. Félix Maritaud, who had a fantastic turn as Max in last year’s BPM, plays Leo in the film.
Maritaud won the first Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award, given by Semaine de la Critique, for his performance.
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‘Honest and violent’
Critic Kyle Buchanan wrote a review of the film for Vulture. In it, he described the sex scene people walked out on in France.
‘At one point, Léo goes home with a city-dwelling couple who treat him like an unthinking animal,’ Buchanan describes. The couple futher makes cruel comments about his appearance.
This scene is briefly shown in the trailer.
‘It’s hard to watch this happen to someone as open-hearted as Léo, and that’s even before one of the men orders Léo to get on all fours, then begins to lube up a gigantic, intimidating butt plug which he will wield almost like a weapon,’ his review continues. ‘A few of the women behind me fled the theater at that point, but Vidal-Naquet said such a scene was necessary.’
Director Vidal-Naquet discussed the graphic and disturbing content of the film, saying it’s ‘honest’.
‘There are clients who can absolutely dehumanize you and treat you like a total object on the pretext that they’ve paid you and they own you. I found that so violent,’ he said.
There is no US or UK release date yet for the film.
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