365 Days (365 Dni in its native Polish) is a romance film a la 50 Shades of Gray. It recently came out on Netflix and because there is nothing better to watch/ do(quarantine and all that) it quickly took the internet by storm. Let me preface this critique by saying that I am a sex-positive person. Erotic cinema is great and I have no hang-ups about lengthy sex scenes in movies. That being said, 365 days was really just not the wave (boat scene reference… anyways). I mainly watched it because of the memes that I saw on social media, and so I was prepared for the terrible dialogue and the incoherent plot line, but what I wasn't braced for was the not so subtle rapey undertones.
Laura, the female protagonist is the secret love interest/ obsession of our leading man, Massimo and so, naturally, he kidnaps her and keeps her for a year until she falls in love with him (or until she develops Stockholm syndrome I guess). Despite the fact that Laura is taken away from her home and her job-- making it almost impossible to leave Massimo even if she physically could-- Massimo continuously states that he won't touch her unless she explicitly tells him to. Despite this, Massimo touches her ALL THE TIME, and is startlingly aggressive when he does so. There's even a scene where he ties her up and BASICALLY sexually assaults her, but he then restrains himself because we're made to think he's sort of "chivalrous". I mean there is just so much wrong with this film, but the way it romanticizes sexual violence and assault is incredibly disturbing. To be frank, I didn't finish watching the movie because at one point the cringe and disgust were far too much to handle.
What this movie portrays isn't sexy at all, the female characters are written with the bare minimum amount of agency (if they're given lines at all). And what's worse is that most of the posts that I've seen about this film don't express how it dangerously blurs the line between sexual coercion and consent.
Sexy films are sexy if all parties engaged are enthusiastic and willing to have sex. Films like 365 don't only play into rape culture but they can be very triggering for individuals who've experienced sexual violence. It's 2020-- consent is sexy. Period.
