Some Recent Viewings

I've watched more DVDs the past month or so than the previous 8 months of this year put together. Must be a mental adjustment made for the autumn. Or something. Anyway, I thought I'd mention some here.

First I'll get the one related to rumpy-pumpy out of the way: Beyond Vanilla. It is a documentary exploring sexual pleasures beyond heterosexual intercourse. An worthy topic, to be sure, but it was a fairly boring watch once I got used to seeing naked people. The video is split into sections looking at different practices and their practitioners. There's BDSM, needle play, vinyl, scat, water sports, playing with fire, and a couple others I cannot recall. Oh! There was a bit on asphyxiation stuff. And fisting too. The video does a good job of explaining the various practices and showing people saying how much they love each one. In fact, the whole thing got very repetitive and boring. Each section laid out what each practice was, the instruments used, etc. This was inevitably followed by a montage of people saying how much they loved being spanked, pissed on, wearing vinyl suits, being choked while they masturbate, or whatever and then they'd launch into a soliloquy about how the whole thing is so spiritual and they feel like they leave their bodies and reach an ecstatic state and blah blah blah.

One element of the video that I have not yet formed a full opinion on is the fact that most of the people interviewed were either gay men or porn stars. While I have nothing against homosexuals or porn stars, the video had this element to it which made me think that, at any minute an evangelical Christian narrator would start in on a tirade: "This is Sodom and Gomorrah! These are an abomination against Christ, our Lord!" blah blah blah. The video did everything to show that people find pleasure in all sorts of activities but virtually nothing to show that these people are anything but gay men and porn stars. As I watched, I felt like it was just playing into all the worst stereotypes out there. It was like watching a video about poverty which showed nothing but well-to-do white people helping poor black folk. There can be no doubt that there are plenty of nice middle class men and women in America who love to be tied up & spanked, urinated on, etc. Beyond Vanilla just came across all too often like a 20/20 segment about homosexual perversion – I kept waiting for John Stossel to appear and praise the free market for the diversity of dildos available.

What the hell else have I seen lately? Ooh! There was a documentary about Paul Bowles called Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles. I knew very little about Bowles other than that he'd written The Sheltering Sky which was turned into one of my favorite films by Bernardo Bertolucci. I appreciated Bowles' admission that he was an atheist as well as his derogatory comments about religion but, overall, it was a mediocre documentary. Granted, I learned about a topic about which I knew nothing before watching the film but, considering it was only 70 minutes long, it dragged at the end. There just wasn't enough variety for me. The highlights had to be the snippets of conversation of Bowles, William S. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsburg when they were gathered together. Some good stories and talk about how Bowles was mistakenly labeled a Beat writer by some. While I certainly didn't want a 20-hour Ken Burns extravaganza, something seemed to be missing. I think it was any sense of continuity. It was a couple random bits thrown together and then something biographical. And then more random bits. It felt like it was edited together in a hurry – things seemed too chaotic and, just when a narrative was being imposed, it came to an abrupt halt. The film did precious little to explain why Bowles was famous or why he should be the subject of his own documentary. In addition, the video indicates that Bowles and his wife were made for each other, very close, and that he was never the same after her death in the early 1970s. But there's never much about the role she played in his life, how she affected his writing, and whatnot. It's a major topic that is just glossed-over. I felt like I watched the Cliff Notes version of his life – there was little depth to any topic whatsoever.

Another recent watch is Vozvrashcheniye (The Return). It's a Russian film about two brothers who are about 14 and 16 and who live in a rural area with their mother. One day their father returns home after a 12-year absence and he takes them on a journey. The film is about their relationships with their father and with each other. I thought The Return was a fantastic film. Not only from a technical point of view with its washed-out grays and greens, but also from a narrative perspective. Excepting the boys, virtually no other characters are given names, including their parents. The return of the father is heralded with a mere, "Be quiet, your father is sleeping" – no fanfare at all. Plus the reason for the father's return and the destination of the journey are also never given. The boys, Ivan and Andrey, have a fairly typical relationship with each other at the beginning of the film – antagonistic. Such is the way of brothers. As they travel with their father, it changes. There is still antagonism but also bonding. The older brother, Andrey, teases Ivan at the beginning of the film but he quickly becomes subservient to their cold, domineering father. Ivan, on the other hand, finds his courage and rebels against paternal authority. The muted colors give the film a harsh and cold austerity to it which mirrors the father and stands in stark contrast to the intense relationships the boys have with their dad and each other. It's as if they're struggling to retain some human warmth and emotion in a very cold world.

The film is not only a wonderful character study, but also a poignant look at boyhood.