Luminous Procuress

A very pleasant recent find in my ongoing quest to find offbeat films of an artistic nature. This is a stunning piece of psychedelia from the dawn of the 1970's that should appeal to fans of arthouse or the artier side of European cinema.

There is no discernible story here but a kaleidoscopic sequence of erotic imagery along the themes of pan-sexuality and gender fluidity, so in some ways half a century ahead of its time! There is also a a suitably psychedelic soundtrack at times reminiscent of late 60's Pink Floyd.

In some ways this has the look and feel of an art college or film school project, tho the gestation of this work is well documented by the other two extant reviews here.

... probably not, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a lot of fun - both for us and, no doubt, the players.

Admirably gender-fluid and unbound by normal filmic conventions, this is not the movie to see if you are into plot (and, as one commenter says, don't expect the dialogue to help..). As for the soundtrack, you may be caught between "avant-garde masterpiece" and "unlistenable noise", but I got used to it in a way I never did with Goblin's efforts for Argento.

It's good that it's been restored and made available (e.g. Via BFI Player, where I saw it) although clearly not for everyone :-)

Worth a look.

Prior to viewing this rare art-house film, I admittedly had expected it to be a drug-hazed Cockettes vanity project. I was entirely mistaken. Steven Arnold, a legendary and rather mysterious figure on the underground cinema preiphery, has created a magical, mystical work of erotic art which is both ingenious in concept, and dazzlingly on fleek in composition. Feistily defiant of its prescriptive "queer cinema" designation, LUMINOUS PROCURESS demands the attention of a broader and more diversified viewership. With the passing of years, it has alchemized as a fascinating historical document of the bright but brief period in America when personal liberty and mutuality were a widespead reality. To call it "a film of its time" would be hugely understated...it's as if the purest essence of the sexual revolution has been fossilized in camera. The participants are clearly having the time of their lives, blissfully unaware of the merciless contagion which loomed on the horizon. Twenty years ahead, too few of these pioneers would be among the living, and their brave ideas and attitudes would be hushed by backlash during the AIDS crisis. The Reagan years would see the return of conservative mores, and fear would lead the dance within the sexual arena.

It's always difficult to explain what loose-narrative films are *about*...though there is a skeletal expository framework at hand, it's provided chiefly to segue and bookend a collection of sexually charged vignettes. Two young men approach the threshold of a sprawling estate, and are greeted at the door by a creature of striking epicene beauty who guides them on a bizarre tour. It soon becomes clear that this is an otherworldly place where the sexually adventurous have merged to exact their most elaborate fantasies. Said youths are apparently uninitiated, but wander with voyeuristic curiosity various rooms, halls, and gardens, their excitement mounting as they observe the erotic excursions, Dionysiac dalliances, and sybaritic psychodramas therein. The exhibitionists at hand are men, women, and cross genders, all visually arresting in mostly unique and unconventional ways...and in true Cockettes fashion, they are frequently clad in ostentatious, pavonine raiments with wildly-styled hair. The film will end before the young men have completed their tour...because their tour will not end. They have coalesced with the flesh-and-blood landscape in this boundless Arcadia of unsuppressed pleasure...and they're eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next visitants.

The film's stylistic flourishes frequently tip the hat to Fellini(an obvious homage rather than a contrivance), and subtle images evoking "Old Hollywood" nostalgia twinkle with warm regard to the Kenneth Anger oeuvre. These are loose comparisons, however...LUMINOUS PROCURESS is a sui-generis work, quite unlike any of the pornographic, sexploitation, and "head" pictures of its day. Oneiric surrealism abounds, generally steeped in spoony, playful irreverence, and while the film does cross a few edgier and reservedly explicit junctures, it wisely evades heavy-handed pretense and drooling malapert transgressions. The psychedelic spaciness of the proceedings is intensified by a disorienting synthesized "musique concrete", often sounding like a cosmic antique carousel groaning and churning in rusted disrepair at the bottom of the sea. Steven Arnold muses on the multisensory nature of eroticism...tactile, cerebral, emotional, and...perhaps...supernatural, his images give flesh to the full pneuma of human sexuality. Though it's roundly a metaphysical testament to psychoactive lotus-eating and the Bacchanalian appetite, moments imbued with loving sentiment have not been wholly foregone.

If you flatly define sex as missionary position coitus in the dark on a mattress between husband and wife, then you might benefit from this film's single, simple, cautionary message ---- LIGHTEN UP. Sex is vital, healthy, and fun. Thank you, Steven Arnold, for leaving us with seventy-three wildly transcendent minutes.

9/10.

Clearly aimed, if aimed at anyone, then at a 'midnight matinee' audience turned on by experimental erotica, "Luminous Procuress", like "Pink Narcissus" which came out the same year, came and went in the blink of an eye only to be rediscovered decades later and heralded as something of a cult classic.

Plotless, dialogue free, except for some 'spoken' gibberish, and impossible to describe, this is a partly engaging though, more often than not, mostly boring piece of pop art that makes no real sense and, like so many films of its kind, is also highly pretentious; a home-movie accessible only to those involved and yet, in its wildly over-the-top fashion, it is also difficult to dismiss. Visually it's often remarkable and in the end, like other similar experimental pieces, perhaps best seen as an installation in a gallery rather than in a cinema.

There is much unknown surrounding the making of LUMINOUS PROCURESS. The first and most important fact is that Steven Arnold was removed from further involvement in the film once the shooting was done. The five backers of the film decided that there would be no further progress on the film with Steven unable to make editing decisions. They were anxious for the film to be finished and enlisted Victor Barberi and I to edit the film as I made the score for it. It took Victor and I about a year to accomplish this. I big problem that the backers and I immediately found was that the dialogue was useless; it was badly written, badly acted, badly recorded, with the sound of the trolley buses outside the studio mixed with the voices. I suggested replacing the dialogue with foreign voices. It took me about a year to compose the score, bringing it in piecemeal to work with Barberi to decide how and where the scenes and music would go. There will be more information on Wikipedia.

Warner Jepson 2008