Ammonite's actors choreographed their sex scene. Photo / Supplied
Passionate, vigorous and sweaty love scenes between two women are not often seen in movies, especially not in mainstream award-contenders between two A-list actors.
Perhaps that's why the sight of Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan's dripping bodies pressed against each other, moving with ferocity and urgency as they seek to satiate their sexual desires as they feel, perhaps for the first time ever, they weren't alone, is such a stunning sight.
The sex scene in Ammonite, out in cinemas today, is rarely done. Sex scenes in the history of film production – obviously we're not talking about pornography – is a complex matter, reflective of the social mores of respective eras.
Even as sex became more permissive and frequent in movies playing in large multiplex cinemas, even as movies such as 50 Shades of Grey titillated blushing suburbanites, unrestrained lesbian desire was near invisible.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Celine Sciamma's burning period romance featuring two women, played extremely well critically and on the festival circuit, but it was a French film that, in English-language territories, mostly played to an art-house audience.
That Ammonite stars Winslet and Ronan is not insignificant. It gives the film, directed by God's Own Country film-maker Francis Lee an immediately higher profile.
Ronan, who at the age of 26 has already been nominated for four Oscars, the first when she was 13, said she viewed the relationship between her character Charlotte and Winslet's character Mary as transcending labels.
"Yes, it is an LGBTQ+ story, but I also feel it goes beyond that and it's just incredibly human more than anything," the Irish actor said. "It becomes very much about the intimacy between two people.
"But audience members from the LGBTQ+ community who have watched the film feel so excited that a movie like this has been made and we're seeing many more of them in the past few years, and to be part of that movement in any way is an honour."
Set in the mid-19th century, Ammonite draws inspiration from historical figure Mary Anning, a geologist whose work has mostly been erased in history by men who literally took credit for her remarkable fossil finds along the Jurassic Coast of her home, Lyme Regis.
Lee's film dramatises Anning as an impoverished woman still searching for fossils to sell to tourists, the only way to support herself and her elderly mother. Mary meets Charlotte when Charlotte's husband leaves the young woman in Mary's care as he gallivants off to Europe.
Mary resents the imposition but also can't turn down the money. Despite the frosty start, the women soon find much needed solace and passion in the other, culminating in that almost frenzied sex scene.
Perhaps the reason the erotic scene doesn't feel vulgar or subject to the objectification of the male gaze is that Ronan and Winslet were empowered to choreograph the action, even without an on-set intimacy co-ordinator.
Ronan said the scenes were among the reasons she signed on for the project.
"The sex scenes between the two of them weren't overly written in the script, and because of that, it allowed us to really step in during rehearsals and take the reins in terms of the choreography," she said. "It was the given from the very beginning of the shoot that Kate and I would do that.
"It was my first experience working on an intimate scene like this, because it was my first time having an intimate scene with another woman. We can have the conversation about what we like and what we expect, or what we looked for in sex and how that changes depending on the day or the mood or who you're with.
"I have never been given so much control before. Because of that, it allowed us to be even more vulnerable and more confident in what we were doing and what we were trying to say with these scenes.
"We were really able to make it an incredibly personal experience."
Ronan explained that she and Winslet sat in rehearsals with Lee with their notebooks and pens, writing down each step and movement.
"There were no surprises, it was like a dance, and it was very, very technical. And once we had learnt those moves, literally like the back of our hand, we could make it emotional and sensual or whatever it was that kind of needed to come out of that.
"There was an ownership over it that I've never experienced."
Ronan hadn't previously worked with Winslet but they had met during publicity tours and awards season events. "So, I think we knew that we came from similar stock and approached work in a very similar way.
"Then this opportunity came along for us to do this, and I felt ready. From the very beginning, there was a real ease between the two of us, and Francis as well, but Kate is the reason I wanted to be involved.
"Because if I was going to do essentially what was a two-hander with someone, I would want it to be with someone who I felt comfortable around.
"Out of that comfort comes creativity. It really felt like a collaboration between the three of us."