What would happen to humanity if everyone lost their ability to retain memories? That’s one of the questions Claire Carré explores with her debut feature Embers, which drops viewers into a world 10 years after a disease infects everyone with short-term and long-term memory loss. Carré splits her film up into five narrative strands, each one examining how an aspect intrinsic to our existence changes within her own dystopian vision; a couple (Jason Ritter & Iva Gocheva) wake up every day trying to remember how they know each other; a former intellectual (Tucker Smallwood) tries different ways to learn again so he can find a cure; a boy (Silvan Friedman) with no parents wanders around trying to survive on his own; a young man (Karl Glusman, credited as Chaos) filled with rage attacks everyone he encounters; and the young girl Miranda (Greta Fernandez) lives in an underground bunker with her father (Roberto Cots), safe from the disease but cut off from the world.

On the surface, Carré’s film looks like standard post-apocalyptic fare, but its tone is anything but. Shooting in Indiana, New York and Poland, Embers casts its urban decay in a bland, grey hue that should bring to mind Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, except Carré doesn’t provide her film with the same bleakness and nihilism. With no one connected to their past, the strong emotions connected to memories don’t exist anymore, leaving characters to constantly live in the moment in a somewhat peaceful state. The only exception to this is Chaos, whose violent acts take on a new meaning given they’re instinctual and without consequence. The somewhat tranquil mood amidst a dying world makes for a fascinating juxtaposition, allowing Carré the ability to weave in emotional and philosophical questions about identity and the human condition.

With a short runtime and several disconnected storylines, Embers only disappoints with its inability to coalesce on a thematic level (most segments just end abruptly). The only exception is Miranda’s storyline, as her near-decade of isolation makes her consider leaving the bunker to go live in the real world. Her father begs her not to go, telling her that once she’s infected she’ll lose everything that makes her who she is. For Miranda, it’s a complicated situation that directly addresses Carré’s question at the heart of the film, over whether or not memory is the source of our own individuality.

Gaspar Noé’s Love is anything but pornography. Pornography makes no attempt to delve into the psychology of the humans portrayed within; it contains actors as models, rather than actors as characters with any sort of depth. While Murphy (Karl Glusman), Elektra (Aomi Muyock) and Omi (Klara Kristin), the three chief characters, may not be the most complex individuals you’ll come across in the cinema this year, they still have hopes and dreams and aspirations, and undoubtedly transcend the notion of “the pornographic model” by a long shot.

Love has such a loosely constructed narrative that it’s difficult to summarize, but it essentially examines the mind and memories of its American protagonist Murphy, now married and with a child, as he reminisces on the greatest love affair of his life with French ex-girlfriend Elektra. What sparks this nostalgic exploration is a phone call from Elektra’s mother, letting Murphy know that she hasn’t heard from her daughter in months and wonders if he has any knowledge of her whereabouts.

The opening scene is a lengthy static shot of Murphy and Elektra engaged in an explicit, unsimulated sexual act. This directorial decision, which paves the way for the remainder of the film’s imagery, should inspire excitement from audiences, but does the excitement hold up for the rest of Love’s 135-minute runtime? Not quite, because at least half of the film turns out to be repetitive scenes of other sexually graphic acts, from different angles and in different positions, but dull and homogeneous in almost every other way.

It’s clear that Noé’s goal here is to expose his audience to such an immense degree of sexual imagery that it would begin to feel like a natural and comfortable thing to view in a non-pornographic film. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect; desensitizing the viewer to the sex being portrayed, with excitement quickly fading into exhaustion midway through the second act. At least all of the sex scenes made the dialogue-heavy sequences—like the intense verbal matches between Murphy and Elektra, which effectively portray the bi-polar, love-hate nature of fiercely passionate relationships—that much more fascinating.

Unfortunately, these rare, existential moments in Love aren’t portrayed in enough detail, or given enough screen time, to really pack much of a punch. They come and go, forgotten among the sex scenes. The emotional peak of the film comes in the third act during a beautiful moment of vulnerability for Murphy. He sits weeping in a bathtub while holding his child, who is also weeping. This moment casts the protagonist in a state of pure nakedness more than any elongated scene of copulation. The female characters, on the other hand, are one-dimensional from start to finish and seem to exist merely as sexual objects for Murphy.

All of that said, Love, much like Noé’s previous two films, Enter the Void and Irreversible, is an impressive technical achievement. His cinematographer, Benoit Debie, experiments with longer takes, carefully framed static shots and a camera that hovers above its main characters for most of the film. The fragmented editing style works wonderfully with the non-linear narrative and transports the viewer from past to present smoothly and with meticulous pacing. However, technical greatness doesn’t constitute a great film, and the majority of Love feels like digging into what looks like a delicious cake, only to find more and more icing on the inside. It may be Noé’s tamest and most grounded film yet, but that is not necessarily what audiences want from him as a director. He’d likely find greater success returning to the psychedelic, hyper-violent shock cinema style that he’s known for. It is there that his niche audience will find satisfaction.

A version of this review was originally published as part of our coverage of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

French filmmaker Gaspar Noé isn’t afraid to push boundaries. His previous films Irreversible and Enter the Void dared us to look away from difficult subject matter, while dazzling us with technical visuals and clever non-linear narratives. So when he premiered his latest film Love at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, audiences weren’t exactly surprised that the film is a provocative sexual melodrama shot in 3D. Especially given early marketing campaigns for the film included “NSFW” in bold letters everywhere and Noe confessing the film is meant to “give guys a hard-on and make girls cry.” But the critical reaction from Cannes suggested the film is a bit more gentle than you may expect—including our own review which stated, “It may be Noé’s tamest and most grounded film yet.”

This new trailer is safe for work, though it does walk a thin line. Love opens in 3D Theaters in New York on October 30th, 2015 and expands to more on November 6th. Below is a brief synopsis of the film:

Murphy is an American living in Paris who enters a highly sexually and emotionally charged relationship with the unstable Electra. Unaware of the seismic effect it will have on their relationship, they invite their pretty neighbor into their bed.