All About Anna

Let's get one thing straight, normal people have sex for real and capture it on video. They made a decent flick out of it. But it could have been so much more groundbreaking. In the end, Nine Songs went further when it comes to fully explicit content.

The problems with this film were as follows. The director tried to avoid full hardcore shots even though the producers wanted hardcore. Her version of the movie is disjointed and odd. If you are disappointed with what was recorded, blame her.

Plus, she seems to have hired her friends to work the camera and sound, because both were seriously unprofessional. Plus, at one point on the extra disc you spot a production camera they were using, something no better looking than a TRV-950. I know you may be low budget, but please get someone to pony up the cash for a GL2 or something.

Basically this film seems like it was sabotaged by the director. I've seen amateur pornography with higher production values. Maybe in the future there will be another more substantial attempt at this kind of movie.

An English language film shot in Denmark with a European cast, "All About Anna" is a co-production from Innocent Pictures and Zentropa Productions, best known in the United States for award-winning feature films like Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark" and "Dogville" starring Nicole Kidman and James Caan.

A slice-of-life mainstream romantic comedy with explicit lovemaking scenes, "All About Anna" is erotica made by women, for women and about women. Despite its graphic sexual content, It's not a shadowy dark night of the soul, as earlier, similar efforts like "The Devil In The Flesh" and "The Brown Bunny" strained to portray. It's simply entertaining and gently arousing, and aimed squarely at ladies and couples. Successful or not (and this critic feels, by and large, that it's a success) "All About Anna" represents a new genre: a fusing of the Northern European ambiance and pretty photography of that 60s classic "Elvira Madigan" (which this film more than slightly resembles, despite a much more upbeat ending), with a distinct feminist sensibility and startling, you-are- there hardcore photography.

Danish director Jessica Nilsson (whose background includes both award-winning short films and cutting-edge music videos) brings a trendy indie sensibility to the film's visual style; the DIY-roots of Dogme95 and the association with Lars von Trier are combined to make "All About Anna" nothing so much as a lush tableaux of desire and abandon.

The deceptively simple story focuses on young Anna (portrayed with an abundance of grace and style by mainstream Danish TV and music star Gry Bay), a young theatrical costume designer, who's focused on her career to the point of shunning romantic entanglements. But her concentration is shattered by a brief encounter with her ex- boyfriend Johan. As she begins to question her choices in life and love, Anna's dilemma ironically stems from her very determination to be an independent, self-actualized woman. While yearning for romance, she fears the pain it may entail - but even more, She fears loneliness even more. In a world where "no pain, no gain" seems to take on new meanings all the time, Anna is forced to make a life-defining decision.

Loneliness is certainly one of the most universal subjects of European cinema, from Bergman's weighty meditations on faith to Truffaut's engaging slice-of-life comedies. Thankfully for everyone who dreads the pretentiousness that seems endemic to so much "serious" erotica, "All About Anna" cleaves to the latter camp.

The much-ballyhooed unsimulated sex scenes emerge as nothing so much as a natural part of the storyline. This simplicity of the explicit content is heightened by the fact that the crew and actors utilized here obviously had no experience in making "adult" films. Indeed, porn fans seeking gynecological close-ups and standard-issue "money shots" should look elsewhere, as this is one sex movie that refuses to indulge sex movie clichés. In many instances, the camera operator's choice to shoot much of the lovemaking as a series of full body shots seems to actually work against the conventions customary to adult - but they speak volumes in terms of exteriorizing the inner lives of central characters.

Beguiling Gry Bay (who, whether intentionally or not, is a dead ringer for the actress who played the titular character in "Elvira Madigan" nearly 40 years ago) is wholly believable both in and out of bed, by turns fetching, troubled, awkward, and sensitive (without ever being maudlin) in a performance that truly exists in a universe of its own, as if telegraphed from an alternate plane where "real movies" and "porn movies" are not mutually exclusive concepts. Eileen Daly happily lightens the mood in a winning supporting role, and French porn icon Ovidie is memorable in a lesbian liaison with Anna (although her Gothic, fetishistic look and personality would seem to suggest she'd be more at home in a Dario Argento erotic-horror opus than a quiet slice-of-life comedy like "All About Anna."

A final influence on "All About Anna" appears to be American cult director Monte Hellman, who while having worked under-the-radar in the U.S. for over four decades, has long been heralded as a genius of the "quiet film" in both France and Denmark (He even recently renamed his production company Quiet Films, in a warm nod to his Danish fans). As the director of "Two-Lane Blacktop," and executive producer of "Buffalo 66" and Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," Hellman has made a career out of crafting somber, slice-of-life dramas that focus on the individual's Search For Meaning.

Imagine Hellman being given a free hand to shoot his own explicit adult film, with a wry, literate script and more than a few knowing references to "Elvira Madigan," and you've got this precocious film, a movie that beats all the X-rated filmmakers in the world to the punch at creating an "adult movie" that's not only also a "real movie" but a truly "good movie" as well.

"All About Anna" is a love letter from Denmark, written in English, sent from the heart, a "Vinland Saga" for American audiences.

Well, strange. There are porn films with no plot. Just they show what they show - sex. There are erotic films with no real sex but much nudity. There are films with slight erotic overtones and such. This one is a weird combination of serious life drama, sad and sometimes happy events, long shots, deep talks and a bit dull silent scenes. OK, let it be an Art House film. No, it is not, as it contains what is usually not in such films - explicit sex scenes in real porn fashion with everything clear and visible. Did it work? Many say it did and the Anna film is a decent European masterwork of real genius. Others say it is a lame shame of a film, with totally unnecessary sex scenes and vapid plot. I tend to agree with the second view. Apart from several explicit scenes, the film is a real boredom, and it drags, drags, drags miserably all along. What is is about, after all? Hard to say. It is so prosaic, even and flat that leaves you with one hanging concern what was it made and what for? I have no answer, maybe, just to show a lovely lady naked and show some boring sequences. This is all, I guess

Well made. Cinema-photography is great, camera angels and movement work well with the story subject. It is not a porn flick! Porn flicks zoom in and only focus on the peoples private parts, which is disgusting to me. This movie shows things from a nice distance so you can take in the whole scene. This allows the viewer to see and feel the story not the bump and grind.

Our only negative is the female on female scene, we fast forward through it.

At one point in the movie, Anna's voice over asks if she has squandered her chance to be with Johan, and that's the point where I had to explain to my girlfriend why I was yelling "yes, you muppet, and it's your own fault!" And then I had to explain why I was watching someone else's home video.

This movie was shot in the Dogme 95 style, and that doesn't do it any favors. Though, in all fairness, I don't think I would have enjoyed it any more if I had been able to see what was going on.

Anna is alright, I suppose, but her voice overs were a little grating. Blame that on English not being her first language.

Johan was... something else. Though early on he did briefly look like Owen Wilson achieving a mild orgasm, but that wasn't during a sex scene, so the jury is out on whether that's a good thing.

Those two pale in comparison to what in my opinion has to be the worst imitation of a human being to have ever been put on screen: Camilla, the roommate.

I firmly believe that this is the kind of roommate who creates serial killers. I think Jeffrey Dahmer had a roommate like her and decided "If I kill and eat a bunch of people I can go to jail so I don't have to listen to her anymore." Hence, the best part of this movie was when Camilla performed oral and I didn't have to hear her cough up noise for a few minutes.

To keep myself from going off on a tangent about what I believe is an extra terrestrial who crashed near the filming location, I shall conclude by saying that if this film had been about logical thinking, sane human beings, the runtime could have been cut back to half an hour tops.

If you enjoy Dogme 95 style films you'll want to give this one a quick look.

Everybody else, just put on some Scandinavian porn.