No Sex Last Night (1996) User Reviews

Up close and personal

[Billiam-4 · 6/10 · 28 November 2021]

Up close and personal dissection of a relationship, told from both sides, is more experiment than a documentary, and although thoroughly sincere with all its adversities, it creates a strong notion that most of the story has remained untold.

Essential viewing for anyone interested in Sophie Calle!

[k.l.ince · 9/10 · 29 June 2000]

For anyone who knows Calle's 'phototextual' work as published in a number of books or has seen one of her many exhibitions, this film adds a wry but also romantic part of her autobiography to the picture. 'No Sex Last Night' starts with a dedication to Calle's writer-friend Herve Guibert, who died of AIDS in Paris as she started the drive from New York to LA with Greg Shephard recounted and videoed in the film. It ends with a second dedication to the great French documentarist Chris Marker, for his film 'La Jetée', which is alluded to constantly in the visual composition of 'No Sex Last Night'. Although Calle's and Shephard's film ends by telling of the failure of their brief and unconventional marriage, thereby undoing the romance genre it is best classified as, it is funny, wittily shot, and very cleverly edited - perhaps a cinematic one-off for this artist/photographer, but one which bears comparison with classic cinema verite and a lot of contemporary video work. Highly recommended for anyone interested in those kinds of cinema and video.

A boring exercise

[pkpphil · 1/10 · 19 December 2000]

A boring exercise, with no interest for anyone: Not daring, not fresh, not even artistic. Though in a documentary style Sophie Calle doesn't seem to be real.