Rocco

An excuse to show porn as a documentary and it wasn't even very interesting. I forward wound after the first five minutes to see if it got better and the answer was no!

Rocco is a bare boned (sorry!) doc on porn superstar Rocco Siffredi who has reached the end of his career. Ultimately an uneven tale is told focusing on the last shoots he orchestrates w/his cameraman cousin who deserves a doc of his own. Herein lies the problem w/this story, how did Rocco get into this business? He mentions his obsession w/women & his mother's disappointment but how did this Neopolitan neophyte find his calling? A more rounded examination from Nick Broomfield or Errol Morris might've succeeded but as it stands, all the sex & foreplay is merely titillating w/nothing substantive gained in the end (sorry again!).

The documentary "Rocco" opens with a close up of Rocco Siffredi's penis. It's an obvious place to start, but it also serves as a summation the entire documentary. No matter how many opportunities directors Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai give the aging porn star to bare his soul, he usually ends up just showing his d--- instead, metaphorically if not always literally.

But Rocco's penis has served him well. His IMDb page lists over 500 "acting credits," dating back to 1986, including a few legit gigs, such as Catherine Breillat's "Anatomy of Hell" and the Italian comedy "Matrimonia a Parigi" ("Rocco" the documentary makes no mention of these forays into "real" movies). It's afforded him fame and fortune, far more than most performers in the adult industry can claim, and for far longer, too. Only Ron Jeremy's career is (ahem) longer, dating back to the late '70s. Yet Rocco, in much better shape in his 50s than Jeremy was in his 30s, thinks it's time to retire from performing. He cites concerns for his teen-age sons, who know what their father does for a living but are, as presented in the documentary, shielded from seeing their father in action. (Their mother, Rosa Caracciolo, was also once a porn star, another detail this documentary makes no mention of.) Mostly, though, he's just tired. To hear him tell it, having a generous endowment and hyperactive sex drive is as much a curse as a blessing. In fact, Rocco pretty much portrays himself as a sex addict, barely able to interact with women outside of sex. Even when grieving the death of his beloved mother Rocco is unable to keep his desires in check: he tells of an encounter with a friend of his mother after his mother's funeral, when he takes out his moneymaker and coerces the woman--a senior citizen, mind you--to fellate him. The story is simultaneously outrageous (it sounds like a scene out of an '70s-era French sex comedy) and unsettling. He's telling the story to illustrate how he's a helpless slave to sex, blithely ignoring that, as he's told it, he forced an old woman to give him a BJ.

There are more graphic examples of Rocco's uneasy relations with women in the industry. At his Budapest-based porn production company, he's charming and even fatherly when chatting with his female performers before putting them in an uncomfortably rough group-sex scene, the kind that leaves women with rug burns on their backsides. (The only sex shown in this movie is of the rough variety.) He's equally charming in Los Angeles when meeting scene partner Abella Danger, then takes her up on an offer to demonstrate her ability to swallow his entire hand. Danger may not be doing anything against her will, but that doesn't make it any easier to watch her, gagging and with tears streaming down her face, as Rocco pushes his entire hand into her mouth.

The co-star Rocco chooses for his final scene is English porn star Kelly Stafford, much to the dismay of his hot-headed cousin and business partner, director Gabriel "Gabby" Galetta, who makes his dislike of the outspoken Stafford plain. One gets the idea that the fact that Stafford speaks at all is an issue in Galetta's eyes. Stafford is a handful, but I liked her for being a confident woman who won't do anything with which she'd be uncomfortable. In other words, she's not the type to let a man shove his hand down her throat just to prove she's compliant.

Though "Rocco" has its moments of levity, like a shot of naked male performers standing outside for a smoke break between takes, or the perplexed faces of crew members at Kink.com's studios, where Rocco's supposed final scene is being shot, as they listen to Galetta's confusing directions, they are overshadowed by the more depressing aspects of porn the documentary inadvertently exposes. Turns out enacting people's sexual fantasies is as dehumanizing and grueling as working on a factory assembly line. As for Rocco himself, he's personable if a little self-absorbed, not nearly as introspective or sensitive as he'd like us to believe, and his treatment of women is just a tad bit rape-y. Mostly, though, he's a guy who has a big penis.

I watched a couple of Rocco Siffredi porn videos many, many years ago and was always put off by his "nasty" streak. In fact, he likes the word "nasty". I hated his bullying attitude, disguised as a love of women. This is an interesting documentary regarding his decision to pack it all up. It's a shame he didn't take that decision long ago. I felt sorry for the poor, degraded victims of his particular brand of punishment. They probably have their reasons for participating. I only hope they'll learn a lesson and move on.

I don't know why he carries his idiot relative around with him to do the photography. They obviously dislike each other and he's incapable of doing a professional job. Why not hire a proper photographer? It only makes sense in the context of his being Family. A distinctly Italian thing.

So he loves his Mama, hates his partner in crime, and seems to be ignored by his kids (sensible pair of boys). What his ex-porn wife sees in him, God only knows. After watching this I felt primarily sad for his victims.

An interesting watch, as long as you read between the lines.

Pornstar Rocco Siffredi retires from porn and looks back on his career and why he quit.

Not sure what I was expecting out of this and watched out of curiosity more than anything else. Mostly, I figured it might be interesting to see what motivates people to do porn, and keep doing it, and then, looking back, what they think of the whole experience.

This documentary doesn't really shed a light on this. It tries to, but there are no profound take-aways. The reasons for quitting seem kind of phony, as if Rocco Siffredi is trying to get us to sympathise with him for being a pornstar. The introspectives just seem staged for the camera, with him saying what he thinks we want to hear.

This makes the whole thing seem quite self-indulgent, like him saying "Look at me, look at what a sensitive guy I am".

Woven through the whole thing are behind-the-scenes clips from the making of some of his movies. This jars with his "Porn is bad, I'm a family man" vibe. I guess that was the idea but the way these scenes make them gratuitous, rather than a demonstration of why he is turning his back on the industry.

Quite pointless in the end. The only thing I learned is that Rocco's cameraman is a dufus...