Month: March 2019

Last Breath

Posted on by victorfraga

Diving to the bottom of the ocean is the closest thing on earth to walking in space. There are the physical similarities: for example, if you drift too far away from the ship, you are lost forever, and if the machinery stops working, you’re dead within minutes, perhaps even seconds. Then there are the mental similarities, such as constantly being face-to-face with one’s own mortality and the great nothingness of the beyond. Last Breath combines both the practical with eternal aspects of the job to tell a fascinating story of one man running out of time at the bottom of the ocean.

Working in the North Sea, with it’s choppy weather and terrifically cold waters, is as financially lucrative as it is dangerous. For Chris Lemons, deep-sea diving and working on oil wells represents a true purpose in life. Engaged to be married and currently building a house, everything in life is where he wants it to be. Then, on a routine maintenance job, tragedy hits. His umbilical cord breaks, and he finds himself completely stranded.

The rest of the film is something like a paradoxical maths equation. If the nearest rescue is in 30 minutes, but you only have five minutes of oxygen left, what are your chances of survival? To say any more about what happens ruins the pleasure of seeing how things end up. This documentary is best enjoyed by diving straight in, its numerous twists, turns and narrative sleight-of-hands making it an highly unpredictable watch. Combining talking-heads with (a little) archive footage and workmanlike reconstructions, Last Breath gives us key glimmers into one of the most difficult jobs in the world, asking if never having the same day twice is really worth putting your body into such potentially lethal places.

What’s particularly commendable is the film’s focus on the specifics of saturation diving, which is the most specialised form of diving work. They remain under pressure for 28 days at a time, going to and from their work in a diving bell. It’s not for the faint of heart. Yet, as the ship suffers numerous crises, little time is expended on why it all went wrong. Like spaceships, everything should be double-triple checked, and these men are completely unprepared for this kind of scenario. Too focused on the main story, Last Breath seems completely uninterested in questioning the ethics of the industry, one where the mortality rate is one of the highest of any profession.

Instead directors Alex Parkinson and Richard da Costa keep the scope narrow and intimate, much like the diving bell Chris went to work in. The only narrators are his immediate crew and fiancé, and it runs briskly at only 85 minutes long. Still, Last Breath soars in its final act, using every possibility of the documentary form to explore what it must be like to truly give up hope or to be confronted with the unknown. It is not merely interested in retelling a story, but plays with our emotions through a variety of different tricks. The result is thrilling, intimate and intermittently terrifying.

Last Breath is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, April 5th.

JT LeRoy

Posted on by victorfraga

T/dropcap]here are at least two ways you can express yourself. You can express yourself through your words and you can express yourself through your body. JT LeRoy expressed himself through the words of Laura Albert and the body of her sister-in-law Savannah Knoop. His readers were blithely unaware that they were being doubly cheated. Firstly, they were cheated because JT was a girl pretending to impersonate a boy, donning a wig and huge sunglasses in order to conceal her real gender. Secondly, because Savannah did not write the three books for which JT LeRoy became famous. Laura concocted the entire predicament of the “teenage boy” and his experiences of poverty, drug use, and emotional and sexual abuse. Does it sound complicated? Well, it is complicated. Oscar Wilde explains it in the film opening: “the truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

Laura and and Savannah (played here by Laura Dern and Kristen Stewart, respectively) tricked everyone. Famous fans of the “teenage boy” included Gus Van Sant, Madonna, Winona Ryder, Carrie Fisher, Bono Vox and Courtney Love. Madonna sent LeRoy a Kaballah book. Courtney Love (playing herself) met LeRoy and was genuinely impressed by the shy and introspective “boy”. Until his real identity is revealed at the end of the film. “What the fuck???”, cries out a shocked Love.

The film starts in 2001 when Savannah was first asked to cross-dress and stand in for the mysterious male writer. Eventually, she fully embodied the character, which she continued to do for six years. To the point that Laura told her: “JT now belongs to both of us, not just me!”. Savannah – who had a boyfriend who knew of the entire ordeal – starts a relationship with an actress called Eva Avalon (who’s in reality a fictitious “stand-in” for Asia Argento, played here by Diane Kruger). Savannah and Eva have sex, but it’s not entirely clear whether Eva immediately realised that “JT” was a female. Savannah eventually tells her boyfriend: “I fucked Eva”. Maybe she penetrated Eva with a fake penis – very much à la Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberley Peirce, 2000). But of course “fucking” isn’t confined to penetration. Maybe she “fucked” Eva in a different way. It’s up to you to imagine the details. And to decide whether such sexual interaction did indeed take place in real life with Asia Argento.

JT LeRoy is based on Savannah Knoop’s memoirs Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy. The very existence of this film and of this book add two more layers of complexity to the JT LeRoy saga. How much did Savannah make up in her literary piece? And how much is a figment of Justin Kelly’s (the film director) imagination? We might never find out. This is why JT LeRoy is a very intelligent and witty film. It refuses to conform to the established orthodoxy of truth.

The choice to cast Kristen Stewart in the main role was not gratuitous. The American model-turned-actress – just like Savannah – is bisexual. Plus, Stewart is extremely familiar with the perks and the pitfalls of celebrity life, including the awkward moments at press conferences (Savannah/JT often has to fend off very intrusive questions about her biological gender).

Ultimately, JT LeRoy is a finely acted and crafted study of the relationship between artistry and identity. It raises moral and ethical questions: to what extent is one allowed to remould their sense of self? I have the answer for you: there is no limit. Laura and Savannah did nothing wrong. They are not a literary forgers, unlike Lee Israel (who adulterated material created by other people). Instead, they conceived a clever ruse. Character appropriation is in the very essence of literature and film. Cinema is all about wearing someone else’s shoes. This is the testament that human sensibility is indeed universal.

JT LeRoy was the closing gala film at BFI Flare, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, August 16th. On VoD the following Monday.

Knife + Heart (Un Couteau dans le Couer)

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Think Jason Voorhees meets Tom of Finland. Then throw in the colours of Dario Argento. And you’re not even halfway there. Knife + Heart is one of the most absurd and uncategorisable films of the year. And wilfully so. It’s one of these movies that will leave your eyes wide open and your head spinning long after you have left the film cinema.

Anna Pareze (played by a blonde Vanessa Paradis, looking a lot like Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies) is a third-rate softcore pornographer working in Paris at the year of 1979. She creates wonderfully wacky blue movies for gay men. Her films feature no frontal nudity and penetration. She’s also, in a very strange way, a motherly figure to her young and beautiful actors. Her formidable personality ensures that they remain loyal and devout to the trade. Until one day a serial killers begins to murder her “children” in the most gruesome ways.

The first killing subverts the notion of penetration. The masked murderer inserts a knife in the anus of his victim shortly after tying him up to bed. This is the ultimate bondage-gone-wrong session. Or maybe bondage-gone-too-real. After all, who hasn’t fantasised about being penetrated by a blade instead of a penis? This is just the first of the many sexually twisted treats in the movie.

Knife + Heart repeatedly plays with meta-language. There are many films within the film. Anna confronts the killer by making a porn movie entitled Homo-Cidal about the murder spree. The final sequence of the Knife + Heart takes place inside a film theatre, while yet another film is being played. Anna is natural born provocateuse. She wants to be more famous and notorious than the masked man, without shedding any blood. And she wants to prove that she’s in charge of her team, and she will now allow the mysterious man to take her boys and her art away from her.

Parallel to all of this, Anna has a tragic lesbian affair with her editor Lois McKenna (Kate Moran). Bar this dysfunctional romance, Knife + Heart is an all-male all-gay affair. At the end of the film, the male and female relations are drawn together is a rather visceral way, which alludes to the film title.

The plot of Knife+Heart is unabashedly preposterous, particularly its incendiary yet inscrutable ending. Don’t try to make much sense of it. There are a lot of loose ends. This does not, however, diminish the artistic merit of the film, which relies mostly in its visual excellence and soundtrack. Vibrant colours populate the screens throughout, blended with black and white and also film negative images. The kitsch look is a tribute to giallo, sexploitation movies and also LGBT culture. The soundtrack – which is available for purchase, the first single Karl having already been launched – is creepy and tacky. Think Serge Gainsbourg’s Je t’Aime Moi Non Plus meets Bernard Hermann. Synthetisers are exquisitely mixed with a harp and the violin. The music is signed by Anthony Gonzalez, frontman of the band M83. He also happens to be the brother of the filmmaker.

Knife + Heart premiered in Cannes in 2018. It showed at BFI Flare in March 2019. Out in cinemas on Friday, July 5th.

Red Joan

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Red is bad. Red Joan, Red Ken, you name it. This is the colour with which you do not wish to have associated in the UK and in many countries of the Western world. The prejudices associated with communism are enormous. Russophobia still dominates our headlines. The lingering fear of Marxism – particularly in a country that never saw a major popular revolution – pesters both the economic and the political establishments. The leftwing ideology is plain evil, and it must not be tolerated. So what better way to defame someone?

Joan Stanley (Judi Dench) is an OAP living somewhere in suburban Britain in the year 2000, in a middle class dwelling. One day the MI5 knock at her door and arrest her. They claim that she had affiliations with Soviet sympathisers while studying in Cambridge in the late 1930s, and that she provided classified material in the 1940s while working in a laboratory to the communist regime, enabling Stalin to create his very own atomic weaponry. Such crime constitutes treason. She denies her crime, but her the information held by the MI5 reveal a very different picture. The media immediately label her: “Red Joan”.

We travel back in time to 1938 and see a young Joan (now played by Sophie Cookson) infatuated with a man called Leo (Tom Hughes), who happens to be of Russian origin. The war breaks out. Joan now works in a laboratory working hard in order to develop an atomic bomb ahead of the enemies (the Nazis and the communists). She begins a relationship with the leading scientist. The Americans bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The unforeseen dimensions of the atomic bomb shock Joan profoundly, triggering her to disclose scientific information to the Soviets. She leverages sexism to her advantage (ie. no one at the time would assume that a woman could be cunning enough to become a spy). Joan has a very peculiar motivation. She believe that if the Soviets too have access to such destructive technology, they would be on an equal footing, and war could be averted. And she was right.

Cinematographically speaking, Red Joan is not a dirty movie. It’s rather formulaic and conventional, an average spy drama doused in saccharine and filled with two half-baked romances (with Leo and with the scientist, pictured above and below respectively). On the other hand, Red Joan contains a very urgent message that world peace must prevail above national allegiances, and that nationalism can be an arrogant and exclusionary notion. This is a refreshing statement, particularly when a lot of mainstream movies re infested with both subtle and not-so-subtle messages of tub-thumbing nationalism and anti-European resentment. Back to the year 2000, Joan’s son repeatedly scorns his own mother for her lack of patriotism without any regard to her genuinely noble intentions.

The filmmaker Trevor Nunn took a lot of artistic freedoms. The film is inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, who was uncovered in 1999. It is said that the Soviets valued her more than the Cambridge Five. Melita did indeed supply such classified material to the Soviets, but she did not do this guided by the principle of world peace. She was indeed a devout communist. In her own words: “I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service”.Still, I’m satisfied that the director twisted Melita’s motive for noble and necessary reasons. We desperately world peace and individual actions to prevail above national interests. One woman/man can indeed make a difference.

Red Joan is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, April 19th.

No Box for Me, An Intersex Story (Ni d’Ève, ni d’Adam. Une histoire intersexe)

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Personal freedoms and choice are central to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans struggle. It’s no different for intersex people (the “I” in LGBTQIA). They demand that they can choose what sex they will live with. Sounds very reasonable. The problem is that – in the majority of the cases – the choice is made for them shortly after they are born, and their intersexuality concealed from them, treated as a pathology. They are forced to live with a sex that they may not be suitable to their needs. It’s time to change that.

There are many types of intersex people. Some had their testicles (and therefore testosterone) surgically removed as babies, and were raised as females. Others were given testosterone and raised as males. And we learn from an unusually progressive mother in South Africa who refused to operate her intersex child, claiming that he/she should make an informed decision when they reach the age of 18. What all of these people have in common is the stigma associated with the “hermaphroditic” taboo. Until recently, even the scientific establishment treated these human beings as abominations, like a two-headed cat (whose taxiderm is briefly featured in the movie).

The female Swiss director Floriane Devigne interviews several intersex people. Doctors and clinicians share their knowledge and opinions on ethics. We watch as intersex people meet other intersex people for the first time in their life. They are not “unicorns”. In fact 0.5% to as much as 1.7% of the world population might be intersex, claims an American activist. That’s nearly one in 50 people, suggesting that such phenomenon is not as rare as we think.

The problem is that the majority of people refuse to talk about their intersexuality, let alone embrace it vigorously. If these figures are right, I am fairly confident that I have met many intersex people in my life, and they might be even in my family or inner circle of friends. Yet it’s only now that intersex people are beginning to step forward and be proud of their non-binary sex. Such categorisation serves to perpetuate the heterosexual patriarchy, and it must be challenged.

One of the film’s central characters Debora is virtually “erased” from the film. You can see her contours, yet no texture, facial features and orifices (pictured above). I’m not entirely sure whether Debora asked to be concealed, or whether this is a creative device used in order to emphasise the neutrality to which some intersex people associate themselves.

This 59-minute documentary is informative enough for those (like myself) who are little familiar into the world of intersex. A good starting point. I hope that the film industry will embrace the topic more wholeheartedly in the near future (and I would hazard a guess that it will).

No Box for Me, An Intersex Story shows at BFI Flare.

Sunburn (Golpe de Sol)

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F Francisco (Nuno Pardal), Simão (Ricardo Barbosa), Vasco (Ricardo Pereira) and Joana (Oceana Basilio) are virtually cut off from the rest of the world in a large and extravagant villa somewhere in Portugal. It’s a sweltering summer, and they spend most of of their time in the swimming pool, strutting around in skimpy bathing suits, rehearsing selfies in front of the mirror or dancing to Brazilian songs. It sounds like most people’s idea of paradise. But it’s not.

Behind the apparent idyllic setting there’s a lot of tension. Sexual tension, emotional tension. Not all is pretty and clean. This is a place for “gin, sun, pool and flies”, says one of the friends, thereby highlighting the duality of the sumptuous summer abode. The distant sound of sirens and helicopters is pervasive throughout the film. Such luxury and isolation are strangely suffocating, and never liberating.

Most crucially, a mythical man called David is about to arrive any day. All four friends have been romantically connected and remain infatuated with the elusive male. They all long and fear his arrival in equal measures. They gradually break down in their anxiety. They are indeed fond of each other, but they are also competing amongst themselves. There’s only one David, and only one of them can have him. A lot like in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (1968), except that the irresistible man is nowhere to be seen. In fact, the entire film narrative is constructed upon David’s impending arrival. You will be forced to stick around until the end of 82-minute feature in order to see his face and experience his power – or not.

Most of the dialogues in the film are about their past connections with David, all in both sordid and picante detail. There is a lot of voice-over conveying the most profound emotions that they are unable to vocalise to each other. Otherwise the four friends are mostly laconic, floating on a giant flamingo buoy (pictured below). All in old-fashioned nostalgic and melancholic Portuguese fashion. They make bleak and witty remarks: “Life is ugly, that’s why people have children” or “When you have a child give him Bergman at six and Tarkovsky at eight, and illusions are over”.

Ultimately, Sunburn is a mockery of failed modern love, and people tragically trapped in conservative dreams of marriage. It’s effective and riveting enough to keep you hooked until the end. The performances are convincing, too. The script, however, insistently delves into petit bourgeois afflictions, and some people might find it a little pedantic. I still enjoyed it, though.

The entire movie soundtrack is delivered by Johnny Hooker, a fast rising and very talented Brazilian LGBT musician. The lyrics (which are translated throughout the movie) are very pertinent: “I’m going to do some black magic in order to tie you to me”, or the very subtle: “do you still think of me when you fuck him?”

Sunburn showed at BFI Flare, when this piece was originally written. It’s out on BFI Player on Monday, April 22nd.

Vox Lux

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Teenage sisters Celeste (Raffy Cassidy) and Eleanor (Stacy Martin) are caught up in a school shooting, where many lives are lost. Instead of making a speech at one of the victim’s funerals, the sisters perform an superb song, which is so appreciated that it becomes iconic. Soon swept up (not entirely unwillingly) in the rock and celebrity business, they find themselves performing in Stockholm, under the purview of the straight-talking manager (played by Jude Law, in a magnificently authentic performance), who micromanages every detail of their lives. Despite the manager’s attention, Celeste manages to conceive an illegitimate daughter.

Celeste becomes more and more famous, making, among other things, rock videos wearing glittering paint-on face masks. Unfortunately for her, a group of young Croatian terrorists wearing face masks just like hers decide to open fire on a holiday beach, killing several people. In one of those cruel irrelevant linkages so often made in celebrity culture, a connection between her and the terrorists is mooted.

By the age of 31, Celeste (now played by Natalie Portman) is a mad, foul mouthed neurotic, embarrassing and worrying her daughter and sending her publicists up the wall as she pronounces on the terrorist incident inappropriately at a press conference. This ends up with an apocalyptic tantrum in her dressing room before an upcoming rock concert. Despite the incident, the rock concert is magnificent. She blows everyone away. The filming of the rock concert is impressive, and it will draw many people to see the film on its strength alone.

This type of film is not new in the annals of Hollywood. I Could On Singing (Ronald Neame, 1963), a vehicle for Judy Garland, is also a film about how American show biz swallows people up and spits them out as sad wrecks. Judy Garland was one of Hollywood’s best-known broken. And let’s not forget Marilyn Monroe. Both Vox Lux and I Could Go On Singing end with showstopping performances. They send out the morally ambiguous message that, yes, show biz is tough but nevertheless the show must go on. This reveals a central contradiction in American culture and the American Dream. Hollywood and other American cultural vehicles are quite happy to admit that the going is tough but what is taboo is to admit that perhaps the system doesn’t actually work.

This raises another issue. Seldom have I sat through a movie where I had to admit that the performances were wonderful – this goes particularly for Natalie Portman and Jude Law and the production values were of the highest order – and yet loathed so much what was being depicted. What goes on in celebrity culture with its false values, artificial news, obsession with image and rampant materialism is evil. It markets people as products. It turns legitimate entertainment into pornography. No wonder celebrities become wrecks. This is what Vox Lux could failed tackled more explicitly, which would have turned it into a truly dirty movie.

Vox Lux is is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, May 3rd.

3 Faces

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It all starts with the mobile footage of a young woman called Marziyeh (Marziyeh Rezaie) in what looks like a cave. She’s gasping and panting. She dreams of becoming a film artist, but her traditional family and community in Northwestern Iran (near the Turkish border) have prevented her from taking up her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory, she alleges. She’s hopeless, and she’s prepared to take her own life. She reveals a noose and points the camera up to the wooden branch from which the rope is hanging. Next the phone drops and clatters on the floor.

Cut to a moving car. The filmmaker Jafar Panahi and the beautiful and red-haired Iranian actress Behnaz Jafari (both playing themselves) discuss whether the Marzieh’s video is real. It’s never entirely clear how the footage got to them. Instead, the focus of the conversation is on whether Marziyeh indeed killed herself or this is a clever ruse. Panahi argues that “only a pro” could edit such video, suggesting that Marzieh might indeed be dead. They drive towards her community in order to find out the truth.

The “three faces” in the film title refers to the face of the filmmaker (Panahi), the famous actress (Jafari) and the dreamer (Rezaie).

Many questions are raised. Was Marziyeh’s profoundly disturbed? Or was she indeed imprisoned by old traditions that prevented her from embracing the toxic and subversive Seventh Art? Or is this a very clever act? And if so, does love for film justify such extreme tactics? Did she have an accomplice? Gradually, Panahi and Jafari uncover the truth. Not everyone in Marzieh’s community was unsupportive of her, but the obstacles were indeed very high. One thing is clear: a career in cinema is hardly a palpable achievement for someone from such a rural, remote and impoverished background.

3 Faces is not a politically incendiary movie, unlike Panahi’s previous Offside (2006), This is Not a Film (2011) and Taxi (2015). It does, however, quickly acknowledge Panahi’s house arrest and prohibition to leave the country (a “light” punishment compared to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who lives in exile and is often hunted down by the country’s secret service), but does not go any further. Instead, 3 Faces returns to the old tradition of Iranian cinema of the 1990s, in its narrative/formal wizardry. It’s meditative, lyrical and cryptic, a lot like The Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1995).

Cinema is a powerful venting outlet for people everywhere. It is a window of dreams. It’s unsurprising that many rural people dream of becoming a movie star, and that they are willing to resort to draconian measures in order to achieve what their objective, or to chastise themselves in case they do not achieve it. 3 Faces will ring bells with those who have seen Close Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990), about a cinephile who wants to meet his favourite filmmaker, and Hello Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995), about villagers auditioning to become a film star. For those of you who have seen the latter, Marziyeh’s predicament is extremely similar to the blind man’s (in Makhmalbaf’s film). Moreover, all three Iranian films illustrate the passion for cinema by playing with narrative devices and foregrounding the cinematic apparatus (ie. the film director is the film protagonist).

The presence of Panahi is neither exhibitionist nor narcissistic. The Iranian director is not Woody Allen, always cocky and super confident of his artistic and sexual allure. Instead, Panahi is a quiet, casual, demure and pensive character. He’s the avuncular filmmaker or uncle that everyone would love to have.

Most of the questions raised above are answered roughly halfway through the film, and the second half of the feature becomes a little jumbled and redundant. Panahi comes across some peculiar traditions: the refusal to kill a suffering bull, saving the foreskin of the circumcised, honking the car in order to negotiate with local drivers, and so on. But the significance of these themes does not come full circle. The final sequence, however, is quite meaningful. It revisits the beginning of the movie. Except that this time the tables have turned.

3 Faces is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, March 29th.

We The Animals

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Three mixed-race boys – Manny (Isaiah Kristian), Joel (Josiah Gabriel) and Jonah (Evan Rosado) – live with their parents (Raúl Castillo and Sheila Vand) somewhere in upstate New York. They affectionately call them “Ma” and “Paps”. The affection that they receive in exchange, however, is extremely volatile. Paps is the stereotypical über macho type who uses violence as his main currency. He’s abrupt and short-tempered. Ma is vulnerable. She allows Paps to manipulate and abuse her. The three children often come across as far more emotionally held-together than their parents.

Nine-year-old Jonah, the youngest of the three boys, is also the most sensitive person in the family. While Manny and Joel attempted to emulate their father’s grotesque sense of masculinity, Jonah prefers to go into hiding. Drawing is his venting outlet. He does it from under the bed, as if finding shelter from the stormy family life outside. He’s Ma’s favourite, and also her safe harbour. She demands: “promise me you’ll be nine forever”. The first signs of Jonah’s sexuality are beginning to show. He is infatuated with a slightly older blond friend, and his drawings contain very explicit homoerotic elements. The LGBT topic, however, is secondary.

We The Animals is a gentle yet harrowing tale about a premature coming-of-age in a fractured home, mainly seen from the perspective of the child. It’s very honest and brutal, without slipping into cliches. The action is interspersed by Jonah’s hand drawings fully animated. It’s as if Jonah’s angst and fantasies were given a lease of life. These drawings include both violence and sexual elements. The montage is exquisite, supported by an electrifying soundtrack. Jarring sound effects accentuate the violence. And Jonah’s battling with his hormones and emotions.

One of the most cathartic moments of the film takes place in the back of a pickup truck, where the boisterous three brothers enjoy each other’s companies. They jump, they roar and they hug each other. Despite their differences, there seems to be a strong connection between them.

Towards the end of the film, Jonah finds a very peculiar hiding place: a grave that his father inexplicably dug in their garden. This is where he allows his imagination to fly as high as possible. Breaking away from his broken family is often the only way to allow his creativity to flourish. His “flight of imagination” inside the mysterious grave is the most poetic and technically accomplished sequence of the film. We the Animals is poetical journey through childhood worth taking.

We the Animals shows at BFI Flare, taking place between March 21st and 31st. It is out in cinemas on Friday, June 14th. On VoD the following Monday. The film is based on the novel by the same name, written by Justin Torres.

Water Makes Us Wet

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The mega-filthy and ultra-subversive Anne Sprinkle is back. The American sexologist, feminist, porn actress and former sex worker is best remembered for her extreme sex performances in the 1980s and 1990s (such as Public Cervix Announcement, when she invited audiences to “celebrate the female body” by viewing inside her vagina with a magnifying glass and flashlight). In Water Makes Us Wet, she gets behind the camera for the first time. The film investigates the connection between water, the Earth and our sexuality.

The outcome is far less hardcore than Sprinkle’s early performances. Alongside her wife and co-director Beth Stephens, the 65-year-old artist travels around her native California talking to various people, always questioning the significance of H2O in our lives. Their vehicle is aptly named the E.A.R.T.H. mobile unit, and they are accompanied by their dog Butch (who encounters a tragic fate towards the end of the film). This is a very lighthearted, lyrical and personal approach to documentary-making.

Annie and Beth interact with artists, intellectual, scientists, water treatment experts and others. They deep-dive into their subject, quite literally. The two women visit Annie’s family house swimming pool, where she gave the very first blow job ever. Annie claims that she is an “aquaphilic” (even her surname “Sprinkle” is a reference to water). There are 250,000 pools in Los Angeles alone, we are told. They also visit a seal colony, where Annie communicates with the animals: “Do the plastic bottles on the water bother you?”, she asks the attentive mammals.

The topic of ecosexuality is the central pillar of the film. We learn that “ecosexuals” are those who feel a romantic or a sexual connection to Mother Earth. But don’t expect penetrative and hardcore sex. Water Makes Us Wet is nothing like Marina Abramovic’s Balkan Erotic Epic (2006), when a several men literally have coitus with our planet and various objects. The sexual connection could be in your mind, we are told.

The idea that “water is erotic” and our planet has an enormous amount of sexual energy is indeed fascinating. However, Annie and Beth’s approach to filmmaking is too informal and incoherent. The topics are too varied and they don’t really gel together. The two women travel from water treatment plants to a seal colony, then go on to talk about Nestle’s water brands, discuss sensory arousal through nature and question global warming. I have no idea how all of these themes fit together. Maybe I’m just not fluid enough for Annie’s world.

All in all, Water Makes Us Wet is still refreshing enough to watch. Just don’t expect too much depth. Annie Sprinkle is very effective is a subversive performance artist, but she isn’t as skilled as a road movie documentarist (Annie is no Agnes Varda).

Water Makes Us Wet shows as part of BFI Flare, taking place in London between March 21st and 31st.

The Third Wife

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Against the beautiful backdrop of a river flowing between high, jungle covered mountains, the lovely 14-year-old May is transported towards her new home where she is to become the third wife of a rich landowner. May’s destiny, and the respect she gains, is dependent on whether she can produce a male child for her husband. Set in 19th century Vietnam, this is a portrait of a society where tradition and social expectation govern the lives of everyone. Those who can fulfil what is expected of them gain respect and prestige. Those who do not or break the rules of tradition can, at best, be second class citizens or, at worst, lead lives of disappointment and heartbreak.

The matriarch who dominates the household, where May must settle, is still not considered the chief wife as she has not yet produced the expected male child. May’s marriage is consummated. She then settles down for most of the film awaiting the birth of her child. She enters a mostly female society (or rather a society where women have a very detached relation with men). The little intimacies of life together, playing with the children, attending a Buddhist festival, cooking and attending to the domestic needs, slaughtering a cockerel, comforting a dying donkey are portrayed in detail. It seems to be a society where women exist on a separate sphere and are totally subordinated to social needs – yet not quite.

May discovers that the matriarch is slipping off in the early morning to a love tryst with a young man. They make passionate love in a bamboo grove. Eventually the young man is told that he, too, must enter into an arranged marriage. He is passionately in love and cannot bear the idea of separating from the woman he truly loves. On his wedding night he rejects his innocent new wife. She is scorned by her own father for failing to come up to expectations and in despair hangs herself.

Everyone in this culture must come up to expectations – female and male. Innocence is no excuse. Authenticity is forbidden. As we all know, this is not only a Vietnamese problem. Wherever the rights of property, social expectation, the convenience of those who make the rules hold sway, individuals are crushed and set aside. May attempts lesbian love with the matriarch figure but is firmly told by the woman she desires that this cannot be done.

The glory of this film is that all this is put forward without unnecessary drama or emotionalism, except when the young man is told he must enter an arranged marriage. Those who do not conform are told that what they are doing is wrong or wrong-headed. The cruelties of life are conveyed by defeated faces, glances and silence, which is actually what happens in most families.

This film is very South East Asian in its sensibility. The director Ash Mayfair is a Vietnamese woman. It is as exquisite as the Chinese culture, illustrated in a pre-colonial context in this film, which so influenced Vietnam. The consummation of May’s marriage is conveyed by the custom by placing an egg yolk near her navel, which the husband then delicately swallows before performing his role. His role is conveyed by a shot of two silk worms, writhing slowly on leaves – an original way to symbolise a penis. Indeed, throughout the film silk worms are a metaphor of the biological processes which so dominate the lives depicted. This film is as exquisite as a ceramic vase and yet in its delicacy it effectively conveys the brutal truths it carries.

It is also a very feminine story in its view. Men have a powerful effect in this film, but they seem to be more off stage than anywhere else. It is the interaction of women between themselves that sets the tone. The performances given by the actors are convincing, well-timed and heartfelt. The other great star of this movie is the Vietnamese landscape with its tall, beautiful mountains, lush jungle, the flight of slim, elegant birds and the light of the late evening. Its images will linger in your mind for a long time afterwards.

The Third Wife is in cinemas Friday, May 31st. On VoD Monday, August 12th.