return to worldwidereview.com,
the home of critical reviews
From: Eva Category: Films Date: 25 September 2006 Time: 12:12 PM Review: http://www.destricted.com Arty porn movie series that Tate’s had a hand in. Matthew Barney stylistically follows his Cremaster trademark, this time with the toned man covered in fluff, wanking as part of an industrial machine of some sort. My, what a lot of cum. He provides the lubricant that oils the machine that then stimulates him to produce more. The opening few minutes are the best, a close-up slow shot of a cock becoming tumulescent, like a little animal on the big screen. Downhill from then on. Richard Prince presents the result of videoing and re-videoing a ‘70s porn movie. I would have liked to watch the movie without his intervention. A porn movie with a clear narrative: sweaty patient with large breasts seduces seedy young doctor. Prince aestheticises porn. Sure it was pretty but neither pretty enough nor his intervention meaningful enough to make it really good. Marina Abramovic provided the light entertainment. Her film is certainly funny but also kind of irritating. If I was Balkan I’d be really pissed off. It was composed mainly of enactments of ‘folk’ Balkan sex remedies and tales, with little cartoons and herself (?) as the silly/serious narrator. Larry Clarke’s contribution is the best, leagues better than the rest. Fantastic – go see. He interviews some young would-be porn stars and then gets ‘the chosen one’ to interview and select his more experienced female counterpart. Larry Clarke allows his subject to do all the talking and by doing so provides a fascinating, hilarious documentary, about pornography but as much about what pornography means to people. Excellent. Sam Taylor Wood misses the point. More wanking, 8 minutes of it. An article about the making of the film in the Guardian painted a picture of her embarrassment in the face of her subject while filming, giggling, unable to say ‘penis’ and feeling awkward when sitting next to the porn star on the way home. She doesn’t have anything meaningful to say about this subject, nor interesting images to feed her audience. Marco Brambilla: each frame a different porn movie shot, from kiss to foreplay to penetration to climax. Fast film, one liner. Seen the technique before, loads of time. Not that interesting, but short and kind of funny. Gaspar Noe really doesn’t get it. I think this film is last because the organisers realised how rubbish it is and that if they put it earlier in the selection they’d risk their audience walking out. More masturbaton. This time a young man wanks for ages, watching a porn movie and using a plastic blow- up doll. Meanwhile, in some parallel place, an actress dressed to look like what 12 years old look like in old men’s imaginations (uncritically), in bunches and a cute nightie, has a sexual experience with a teddy bear. Dangerous cliché after cliché. An unnecessary strobe effect and the goth boy’s fantasy sadism attempt to make the film risqué, but it’s just tedious. The audience had to stay until the boy’s disappointing orgasm and then we were finally free to leave and slag it off. Apparently this film series has been slated by the press. I didn’t find the pornography in it an issue, but only Larry Clarke really goes far enough in exploring the subject. Worth seeing just for him. The other artists are still stuck reacting to taboo. All in all though, it wasn’t such a bad night out.