Si je t'aime, prends garde a toi (1998) **

Directed by Jeanne Labrune. With Nathalie Baye, Daniel Duval and Jean-Pierre Darroussin. A respectable woman (Baye) meets a thugish man (Duval) who abuses her throughout the film. What happens to brutal men in American movies? They are shot (though usually only after many rapes or beatings). What happens to them in French films? They always find a masochistic woman who falls in love with them. A gentle little love story from the land of marquis de Sade.