The Alameda County Superior Court watched the film twice and declared that it,"explicitly and vividly revealed acts of masturbation, oral copulation, the infamous crime against nature [a euphemism for sodomy], voyeurism, nudity, sadism, masochism and sex..." The court rejected Landau's suit, further condemning the film as "cheap pornography calculated to promote homosexuality, perversion and morbid sex practices."

He was similarly rebuffed in the District Court of Appeal of California, which accepted that Genet was a major writer but cited this as a lesser work of an early period and declared that in the end it was "nothing more than hard-core pornography and should be banned."

[5] Fernando F. Croce of Slant wrote "A revolutionary vision of emancipation through sensuality, Un chant d'amour is a song of love both universal and eternal.

"[6] Jamie Rich of DVD Talk called it "an effective film, albeit a tad clumsy and pretentious" that is "still a progressive and interesting experiment worth the time one is willing to put into it.

[8] The film has been cited as an influence for many gay filmmakers, including Derek Jarman, Andy Warhol, and Paul Morrissey.