L'amant

When three older men buy a 17-year-old schoolgirl named Chikako (Ando Nozomi) for a year's-worth of sexual services -- her motivation, aside from money, is never explained -- the relationships among the men (whom she calls A. B and C) keep shifting in ways that redefine power and sex. These are not easy to read, except as male fantasy. (Real nudity is avoided.) What is clear is that the men are increasingly infantalized as Chikako grows up. They call her Hanako, in tribute to one's absent daughter. The pic's visual effects are somewhat Godardian, with found music, disjointed cutting and a strange finish involving a stuffed teddy bear, along with some Bunuel-like sexual motifs that add to the confusion and also dilute the prurience. In the end, though, the characters don't move forward enough to be more than ciphers.