The film contains some shorts about sexuality and pornography. At first we are presented with what looks like a gigantic brownish slug. It was not with shock & horror that the giant darkened slug was viewed by the audience. Rather, the giant slug was greeted with amazement and laughter. The giant slug turns out to be the thankfully in-tact penis of a man who is suspended within a gigantic machine he was making love to. Thankfully the man's penis and testicles aren't torn off by the shaft of the machine, as some lubricant and plastic are present.
In another short we get to see a young man play doctor with a nice regular looking female. The innocence and humor are poignant.
In another we get to see several young and old Balkan women. They either stand and sing with their breasts showing, or they ran around in traditional frocks briefly flashing their vulvas. We also learned about Balkan sexual folklore, such as how their men used to put their penises in holes drilled in wooden bridges so as to prevent impotence. Several other fascinating and funny tales are told.
Another great short starts with several young men being interviewed to be in an adult film. Each talks about their experiences with exposure to porn, and each ends up showing their shaven packages. The showing reveals a certain vulnerability and common humanity between them. Eventually the short producers choose one from the group, and he then gets to interview prospective women who're going to be in the supposed adult film within the short. He ends up selecting the forty year old woman - a lady who is outrageously overt toward him, and who most strongly fits the stereotype of an impish porn star.
The key things revealed in the short are: the vulnerability and tender commonness of human sexuality; the silliness which comes from all the fakery present in regular porn; what it's like for a young male who's been exposed to porn to finally get to have sex with a porn actress; and the strange mix of beauty and silliness that is present in commercial porn. The short wasn't really "porn" itself, it was an effigy of it, a clearly focused full color shadow or impression or view, a clear caricature illustrating what commercialized porn is: some beauty; some realism; some fakery; some pandering; some silliness; some crassness, although there was no crassness in the short itself.
In another short we see several less-than-a-second shots from various porn films.
In another we see a panning shot of the breathtakingly beautiful Death Valley and a man masturbating on the ground there. His struggle for release and his subsequent exhaustion is shown.
In another we see a man and a woman separately watching adult films and masturbating in their own separate bedrooms. Our view of the movie flashes at about seven times per second, and there's repetitive music and faint baby cries heard. We see the young man screwing a plastic doll. We see the woman with her fingers up her vulva. Each are alone. This short illustrated several things including that even when we are having sex the experiences we're having are our own.
In a final shot for the film a line of men in presumably Balkan costumes are all standing with their erect members, which slowly deflate as we all watch. One audience member comments "concentrate" in an attempt to help the men maintain their stature.
Here's the impressions I was left with after the entire film concluded: 1. That porn and open expressions of human sexuality in film should not be feared. Those who fear it simply haven't seen enough of it. Seeing enough helps one realize what porn is. It's not a substitute for real in person interaction. Some couples in western countries use it to help enhance their real in person interactions. Some individuals use it to either help educate themselves about the functionality of human sexuality, or to "get by" during times when they're alone. What is revealed through extensive viewing of humans having sex, in whatever context, is that there is beauty and strangeness and silliness. Everyone has their own tastes. Some more educated more sensitive types probably prefer material which is less crass and more authentic. More real, and less directed and less micro-managed. More true to life.
Also, a lot of exposure to such material does not result in moral degradation. Rather, it results in several things. In part we come to see human sexuality as something akin to the work in a sausage factory. To a birth. To a biological process we get to observe & participate in. To joy, pain, strangeness, a recognition of our connection with all organic life. It's all skin on skin. Flesh on flesh. It's living. Get used to it.
2. That authentic expressions of human sexuality in movies should be celebrated. I'd personally rather see independent films focus on such things, because most anything Hollywood touches turns to crass commercialized crap. So, films like Caligula, Intimacy, 9 Songs, the works of Tinto Brass, and the Pier Paolo Pasolini films such as The Decameron, and The Canterbury Tales - all these films, and this most recent film Destricted, are revolutionary in that they show: That what some of us fear and loath need not be feared, when stared in the face.
3. The human sexuality is pedestrian and beautiful at the same time. Common. Tender. Personal, but public as well. Experientially individual and shared simultaneously. Sometimes intimate and sometimes detached. Overly hyped by some. But not valued enough by others.
At Sundance '06 some of us got to stare a huge slug in the face. The slug moved. The slug grew. But in the end, we found it was just a part of being human and being alive.
In another short we get to see a young man play doctor with a nice regular looking female. The innocence and humor are poignant.
In another we get to see several young and old Balkan women. They either stand and sing with their breasts showing, or they ran around in traditional frocks briefly flashing their vulvas. We also learned about Balkan sexual folklore, such as how their men used to put their penises in holes drilled in wooden bridges so as to prevent impotence. Several other fascinating and funny tales are told.
Another great short starts with several young men being interviewed to be in an adult film. Each talks about their experiences with exposure to porn, and each ends up showing their shaven packages. The showing reveals a certain vulnerability and common humanity between them. Eventually the short producers choose one from the group, and he then gets to interview prospective women who're going to be in the supposed adult film within the short. He ends up selecting the forty year old woman - a lady who is outrageously overt toward him, and who most strongly fits the stereotype of an impish porn star.
The key things revealed in the short are: the vulnerability and tender commonness of human sexuality; the silliness which comes from all the fakery present in regular porn; what it's like for a young male who's been exposed to porn to finally get to have sex with a porn actress; and the strange mix of beauty and silliness that is present in commercial porn. The short wasn't really "porn" itself, it was an effigy of it, a clearly focused full color shadow or impression or view, a clear caricature illustrating what commercialized porn is: some beauty; some realism; some fakery; some pandering; some silliness; some crassness, although there was no crassness in the short itself.
In another short we see several less-than-a-second shots from various porn films.
In another we see a panning shot of the breathtakingly beautiful Death Valley and a man masturbating on the ground there. His struggle for release and his subsequent exhaustion is shown.
In another we see a man and a woman separately watching adult films and masturbating in their own separate bedrooms. Our view of the movie flashes at about seven times per second, and there's repetitive music and faint baby cries heard. We see the young man screwing a plastic doll. We see the woman with her fingers up her vulva. Each are alone. This short illustrated several things including that even when we are having sex the experiences we're having are our own.
In a final shot for the film a line of men in presumably Balkan costumes are all standing with their erect members, which slowly deflate as we all watch. One audience member comments "concentrate" in an attempt to help the men maintain their stature.
Here's the impressions I was left with after the entire film concluded: 1. That porn and open expressions of human sexuality in film should not be feared. Those who fear it simply haven't seen enough of it. Seeing enough helps one realize what porn is. It's not a substitute for real in person interaction. Some couples in western countries use it to help enhance their real in person interactions. Some individuals use it to either help educate themselves about the functionality of human sexuality, or to "get by" during times when they're alone. What is revealed through extensive viewing of humans having sex, in whatever context, is that there is beauty and strangeness and silliness. Everyone has their own tastes. Some more educated more sensitive types probably prefer material which is less crass and more authentic. More real, and less directed and less micro-managed. More true to life.
Also, a lot of exposure to such material does not result in moral degradation. Rather, it results in several things. In part we come to see human sexuality as something akin to the work in a sausage factory. To a birth. To a biological process we get to observe & participate in. To joy, pain, strangeness, a recognition of our connection with all organic life. It's all skin on skin. Flesh on flesh. It's living. Get used to it.
2. That authentic expressions of human sexuality in movies should be celebrated. I'd personally rather see independent films focus on such things, because most anything Hollywood touches turns to crass commercialized crap. So, films like Caligula, Intimacy, 9 Songs, the works of Tinto Brass, and the Pier Paolo Pasolini films such as The Decameron, and The Canterbury Tales - all these films, and this most recent film Destricted, are revolutionary in that they show: That what some of us fear and loath need not be feared, when stared in the face.
3. The human sexuality is pedestrian and beautiful at the same time. Common. Tender. Personal, but public as well. Experientially individual and shared simultaneously. Sometimes intimate and sometimes detached. Overly hyped by some. But not valued enough by others.
At Sundance '06 some of us got to stare a huge slug in the face. The slug moved. The slug grew. But in the end, we found it was just a part of being human and being alive.