O Pornografo

Jacques (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is more like a philosopher in this movie by Bertrand Bonello than a director of a pornographic movie. He looks back at his life and explores the sense of his existence. It is not clear how he lives when he makes his last movie after some years of interruption and how he sees his future but he takes some comfort in the presence of his son. This movie is very sober and in fact it is pessimistic because it does not give us an answer about the meaning of the life of the main character Jacques. Is he sad about his career as a maker of pornographic movies or is he proud of his work?

Le Pornographe can be termed as a decent film directed by Bertrand Bonello as it does not shock any viewer who has self conceived notions about the film's title.It is one of those typical French films in which characters ramble on various life affirming themes.This is the reason why the film's title is an absolutely inappropriate misnomer as the word "Le Pornographe" does not do much justice to this film's central themes.Bertrand Bonello has made effective use of his film's principal character,a famous French director of pornographic films Jacques Laurent to conduct an observational study about various human relationships which include a troubled father son relationship,a pallid husband wife relationship.These relationships are so strongly portrayed that the topic as well as scant depiction of pornography is easily sidelined.Although this film features some famous porn stars like HPG,Ovidie etc,it is through actors like Jean Pierre Léaud, Jérémie Renier,Catherine Mouchet and Dominique Blanc that Bertrand Bonello is able to lead his film to its inscrutable conclusion.

In "Le Pornographe" Jean-Pierre Léaud plays Jacques Laurent, an old and famous director of pornographic films in the 1970's and 1980's, who after an absence from filmmaking for many years decides to make his last film projects while trying to reconciliate with his teenage son (Jéremie Renier) who disapproves his father's career. Bertrand Bonello directs a quite controversial material but lost his way while trying to focus the depth of his film on the dramatic side of the story.

Porn is all about the true in front of you and there's no escape from that. At least the sex scenes are performed by the actors, there's no falsity on that. Drama in its highest form only has nuances of reality, it touches reality very closer but it's false, you can see where fiction begins and reality ends. Here's examples of both statements: Action actors (sometimes) depends on the stunt doubles to perform their risky scenes; porn actors don't, they are committed to the sexual acts. Now, the film in question broke the barrier between both medias (dramatic and pornography), made relevant to the story but while it pushed the envelope in a great way in one genre (the porn) it made the other one totally uninteresting, without firmness of purpose and, I really didn't want to say this but, quite boring. This plot on the hands of a Bergman or an Altman (first names that comes to mind in terms of quality in drama) would be fantastic, and they wouldn't use graphic scenes to play their story. P.T. Anderson made something similar and ten times better with his "Boogie Nights". The eroticism was a supporter from the story involving persons behind the porn world.

So, the only interesting thing in the film is the film within the film, the porn film directed by Léaud's character in a very explicit scene (there's two scenes, being the first most shocking for regular viewers of drama films). The way the scenes somehow fit the film was interesting, the reactions of the non-porn actors and all. Towards the end of the film when Jacques is interviewed he says about how he started to make porn movies and here's an interesting question left to us when he talks about pornographic films being an art. In which category you would put a film like "Le Pornographe": in porn or drama? It plays with our heads for a while.

There's no way you can relate with this director living a crisis in his life neither his rebel son preaching a silent revolution to change things on the country with his colleagues; everything they do is so disconnected, a bad presentation of facts, a weak and confusing narrative that doesn't know how to hold the audience's attention (except for the already mentioned film within the film). In short, the drama is fake and boring while the sex is real and interesting. It's a real disappointment that Jean-Pierre Léaud was part of this film with one of his weakest performances (he gets better in the final moments) in an almost meaningless film. Very weak film, watch it only out of curiosity and nothing more. 5/10

Jacques (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is the son of a doctor, born in 1950, who had dedicated his life from 1970 to 1984 to pornographic movies. His wife committed suicide when his son Joseph (Jérémie Rénier) was five, and when he was a teenager, he became aware of the profession of his father and left home. Presently Jacques is broken and has decided to accept the invitation to direct porno movies again. Meanwhile his son, now seventeen years old, decides to approach to him.

This film is so pretentious and boring that irritated me. The story is quite ridiculous, and the antagonistic philosophic behavior of Jacques is funny. A guy who dedicated his life (since twenty years old) to pornography, in the beginning just because he wanted to attract girls for having sex, worked along fourteen years with sex, is not to have an existential middle-age crisis like showed in the plot of this movie. I do not like porno movies and I am not a moralist person, but if I have to see explicit sex, at least lets see with beautiful actresses in erotic situation. I do not know the name of the 'actress' in the explicit scene, but she will certainly be marked for the rest of her career. I do not understand how such a crap was awarded in Cannes. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): 'O Pornógrafo' ('The Pornographer')

This film , as one previous reviewer has mentioned, is pretentious and boring. The sex scenes are gratuitous and add nothing to the narrative. This film has less of a reason to depict graphic sex than DEEP THROAT did yet it manages to work up to a senseless and oddly boring sexually graphic moment and with even worst actors (imagine that!)than that silly camp film.

It is fitting that at the turn of the century sex would be depicted as a silent dirty act by a tired old French director. He blames youth for the impotence in this bogus film and that is not fair. This movie lives in a vacuum of it's own making.

The worst of porn was never this bad. As the ads for the French Classic EMMANUELLE once stated, "x was never like this." The BBFC was right! Take ten second out and you have the impotent tragedy this film really is; Leave them in and you have exploitation of the public under false pretences. The director should apologise to us for subjecting us to this . We expect more out of French Cinema.