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lingering on her as she lies asleep on the bed; then the camera guides viewers into Theo's
room where it finds him on the bed, reading aloud a passage from Mao's Little Red Book.
Again, the camera leaves Theo and seeks Matthew who is spotted from the corridor as he
does exercises in his room. Here, the mobile frame provides viewers with a complete and
simultaneous understanding of the trio's different responses to Theo sanctioning his sexual
independence: Isabel's inability to accept it, Theo's melancholy awareness of a lost
happiness, and Matthew's frustration at his own sentimental defeat. However, although this
third eye allows viewers to explore the fictive world without the mediation of diegetic
characters, it is not neutral. In focusing on the characters' love pains, it seems to take as a
given Isabel and Theo's disturbing bond, which, by contrast, may remain an unresolved issue
at the back of most viewers" minds, given the difficulty of integrating it within the schemes
of human behaviour (Branigan, 1992: 27). This unease is likely to vitiate the director's
attempts to elicit compassion for the trio via this palpably 'humane' camera gaze, and this
disquiet may distance viewers from wanting to engage with the characters' destinies - an
outcome reflecting the viewing experience in La hma.
Several sex scenes present a cinematic technique consisting of an initial perspective
through a character's point of view, which is subtly replaced by a non-aligned camera
perspective. In this respect, one particular sequence is emblematic. It is set in the kitchen,
with Theo immobilizing Matthew and Isabel removing his clothing while making sarcastic
comments. The exposure of Matthew's genitals is initially shot from a perspective that is
closest to Theo's, but because Theo's head is visible in profile, the perspective does not
belong to a diegetic character. A change of position brings the camera towards Isabel's visual
field, but again, the perspective is such that the close-up of Matthew's penis is slightly
angled, while a POV shot from Isabel's perspective would have entailed a frontal, straight-on
shot. The angled view, unattached to any protagonist, results in a fragmented image of male
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