FEBRUARY 5 ― No matter how progressive and permissive society has become as we go deeper into the 21st century, sex remains, and probably always will be, a taboo subject in cinema.
Yes, provocative films on or about sex are not getting banned or censored in most countries nowadays, but a moral/media outrage is always sure to erupt whenever these films get released in certain countries, even those in the West.
Inside that colourful spectrum that we call sex, there are of course a whole variety of subjects that are simply waiting to be explored by filmmakers who are a wee bit braver and are unfazed by the sight of controversy, such as prostitution, kinks, fetishes, the various forms of exploitation occurring within the sex industry and so on and so forth.
The phenomenon that we call porn stars, however, has surprisingly yielded way fewer films when compared to films about prostitution.
In fact, such is the ubiquity of prostitution in the world of films that there’s even a bona fide (and hugely successful) Hollywood rom-com about a businessman and a prostitute falling in love with each other, a 90s classic called Pretty Woman that’s still a huge audience favourite until today.
The closest that porn stars have to having their own version of Pretty Woman is probably The Girl Next Door, a post-American Pie teen movie, though it’s nowhere near the financial success and classic status that Pretty Woman is.
And maybe we can even include Boogie Nights as well, although that Paul Thomas Anderson classic is more of a cautionary tale and gets darker as the movie progresses.
Look at it however we want, the fact remains that films about porn stars or the porn industry are still very few and far between, and the majority of them are still highly misunderstood because porn is still such a taboo subject as the economics and sexual politics behind it are still very much up for debate, as the line between consent, exploitation and a woman’s freedom to choose can get real blurry depending on the circumstances.
These two new films, both about porn stars of different sexes and at different stages in their careers, will not help settle that debate, but both will give viewers valuable insight into what’s at stake and how things might just play out in those circumstances.
Red Rocket
With the body of work that he’s built since his debut film Four Letter Words in 2000, writer-director Sean Baker has more than deserved his reputation as one of America’s finest chroniclers of marginalised characters (particularly sex workers), and his latest film, Red Rocket, about a washed up mid-forties male porn star who returns home to Texas (presumably because he’s past his sell-by date), is not even his first film that’s focused on a porn star (that honour belongs to what I think is still his finest film, Starlet, from 2012).
Mesmerisingly played by former MTV VJ Simon Rex, his porn star character Mikey Saber is one of those charming, fast talking hustlers, who are always looking for that chance to make that step up in life.
Now back in Texas trying to pick up the pieces, Mikey stumbles upon his next shot at the American dream, in the form of a 17-year-old donut shop employee named Strawberry (another sparkling piece of casting in debutante Suzanne Son) whom he thinks is going to be the next big porn star (under his tutelage and management, of course).
Just like in his breakthrough film Tangerine (which was shot on an iPhone 5 and starring real life transsexual actresses), Baker employs a more comedic approach to his storytelling here, utilising plenty of laugh out loud quips either coming out of Mikey’s motormouth or out of other people’s reactions to his antics, and the film’s wondrously crazy climax needs to be seen to be believed (and is worth the price of admission alone), but make no mistake, there’s plenty of pain, regret, and broken dreams littered along the way, resulting in a radiant, touching, funny yet at the same time pretty sad film.
Pleasure
If Red Rocket is about a washed-up male porn star at the end of his career, then Pleasure, an English-language film by debuting Swedish writer-director Ninja Thyberg, is totally at the other end of the spectrum, focusing on a 19-year-old Swedish visitor calling herself Bella Cherry (an absolutely fearless and magnetic Sofia Kappel, in a remarkable acting debut), who’s hoping to become a porn star in Los Angeles.
Another crucial difference is that Red Rocket was set in 2016 when porn was only in the midst of fully moving online towards things like Onlyfans while Pleasure is fully set in the current climate of online porn, wherein accessibility is simply at the touch of a button on screen and where the line between professionals and amateurs can be said to no longer exist, and one of the easiest ways to distinguish oneself as a performer (and hopefully rise to the top) is by doing more and more extreme things.
This is the world that Bella has found herself in, and director Thyberg’s punishing and clinical look at the LA porn industry is really not for the faint hearted.
Thyberg reportedly did her research for this movie by immersing herself in the porn industry since 2014, earning the trust of both crew members and performers in the industry (most of the cast here are from the porn industry, playing versions of themselves and doing a pretty stellar job at it), and the film feels a bit like a documentary being hung around a fictional plot, with plenty of detailed observational moments that will make a lot viewers feel pretty uncomfortable.
This film might be titled Pleasure, but I can assure you that by the end of it, trauma is a more exact word to describe the journey that Thyberg has just put Bella (and the audience) through, and it’s as sad and powerful a tale as Lilya 4-Ever was before this.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
