I’m sure you’ve heard of “365 Days,” after all, it’s very hard to escape this Polish erotic romance if you ever scroll through your Netflix. The film is, more or less, the equivalent of softcore porn. It’s also, currently, as of 06/24/20, the second most-watched film on Netflix.
Based on an erotic novel by author Blanka Lipinska, “365 Days” stars Michele Morrone as Massimo, a member of Italian mafia who fails to protect his father from an assassination after being distracted by a beautiful woman. Massimo then becomes obsessed with this woman, a Polish sales agent named Laura, so much so that he ends up kidnapping and imprisoning her. Say, what? Massimo’s plan is for Laura to fall in love with him, and she has 365 days to do so or she can ust go back to her unhappy life in Poland.
The big catch for most viewers is the sex scenes, which have been, ahem, going viral on social media despite the film’s 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes. There’s also the much-talked-about four-minute sex montage, set aboard a yacht, which includes graphic depictions of oral sex and various outlandish sexual positions. Un-simulated sex? You be the judge as there has been a contentious debate about that since the film premiered on the streaming giant’s platform back on June 7.
Regardless, this unexpected popularity for softcore porn has amounted to Gaspar Noé’s 2015 film “Love” soaring in popularity on the Netflix charts. As of June 24, “Love” ranks as the fifth most-watched film on Netflix and the seventh most-watched program overall.
Having first premiered the film at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, there is no debating the sex scenes in “Love,” which were un-simulated and very real. Noé presented “Love” in 3D at Cannes, I had the pleasure of attending a screening which included a moment in the film when the main character ejaculates right at the 3D camera.