All About Anna

First things first: There are only few notable merits regarding this particular "experiment" but it is certainly not completely devoid of them: for one, the director attempted to create a counterbalance to what is universally considered as the problem of the mainstream pornographic motion picture, be it soft core or hardcore: the presentation of a mechanical, emotionless, unengaging, uninspiring and ultimately tiresome repetition of sexual acts aiming solely at the physical arousal of its viewers and probably achieving that in the first few minutes; rendering the rest of it as a distasteful and vicious circle.

The producers misleadingly labelled it as "pornography for women", perhaps acknowledging the fact that the scenes are not explicit enough to present it as the hardcore pornography they would have liked. And a large portion of it probably isn't as it seemingly provides to bridge the gap between hardcore pornography and erotica and create a film that would ultimately excite the senses in both a physical but also an emotional level as well as provide an engaging storyline that would justify the sex scenes as a meaningful entity of the whole. If that was the initial intention, as the producers of AAA claim it to be, it certainly wasn't given justice by the end result - in spite of the fact that that premise and intention was probably there in the offing. This is less evident in the actual producer's cut or even the director's cut of the film but a lot more evident from the outtakes of several of the sex scenes included on the DVD: they are long, varied, passionate, well rehearsed and acted and emotionally engaging; while the camera work is such that makes them appear both sensual and realistic. They're shot in a way as to provide a clue to the fact that most of the sex in the film is unsimulated; but with a more cryptic, more erotic vision, contradictory to the average porn sensibility.

It's not surprising that this film is described as a collaboration of a major mainstream pornographic production company and Lars Von Trier's Zentropa. But this dichotomy ultimately leans towards the side of the porn producers as they seem to win over the intentions of the director and probably some of the actors themselves who probably had a more concrete idea of what they wanted to achieve or rather what they wanted to avoid. As a consequence, although there is the actual "philosophy" of supporting the making of such a film - the existence of a "manifesto" in the like of Dogme95 that states the preferable and the avoidable - it all seems to escalate and ultimately fly in the face of that it was purported to be. Crudely put, there are facial ejaculation scenes; there is "cheap" music that is supposed to "complement" the sex - but in fact it is totally out of place. There is also a sorry excuse of a script and what is supposed to be a storyline but it is all done so poorly that can hardly conceal the fact that there isn't one. And most importantly: there is bad acting - which is quite surprising given the fact that some of the actors are allegedly unfamiliar with the territory and are earning their living from participating in more socially acceptable genres of film-making. However, judging by the actual acting in the film - give and take the sex scenes - either the levels of acting in Denmark are really low at the moment or these particular actors are hardly adequate in their chosen field. All the more so when particular emphasis is given towards presenting a story: the bad acting and lack of a meaningful plot to back things up create an even bigger problematic. Then there's the attempt to dress it all up with the addition of a supporting cast that comes straight from hardcore pornography; acting in more explicit and conventional scenes and overall giving a very uneven feel to the whole endeavour. Why add more characters and more scenes and "embroider" the film with what was supposed to be trying to avoid in the first place? Let alone make things even more complicated and disjointed when the leading characters themselves are so underdeveloped? It's therefore obvious that the initial intention was not shared by all of the people involved and consequently not sustained throughout the project - which is a shame and perhaps a wasted opportunity? The end product ultimately reflects those dichotomies: It's half-baked to such an extent that would equally disappoint both the fans of porn - because of the lack of enough explicit scenes they are accustomed to watching - but also those viewers who, deluded by the producers' promises, were prepared for watching something entirely different. It is different but not different enough to dissociate it from mainstream porn in terms of overall sensibility or production values. Finally some suggestions in case somebody else attempts something similar: give the director more artistic freedom to shoot what they like and present the film the way they like. Give them more time to work on it and have a more concrete picture as to what they aim to achieve. Lose the voice-over, especially when the script is so poor; get a decent scriptwriter to write a meaningful story, not an excuse for bad acting. Or perhaps simply give Lars Von Trier himself the camera and step aside...

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.

All About Anna aims to be an erotic film for and by women that incorporates unsimulated sex scenes as a natural part of the storyline. This normalization of the pornographic content is further emphasized by the fact that most of the crew and actors had no experience with making pornographic films before All About Anna. Consequently the sex scenes are photographed and performed in a way that you would not expect in a typical hardcore pornographic film. In fact, the sex scenes even play with or against the conventions customary to pornographic films, and are also used to portray the personalities of the characters.

The leading actress, Gry Bay, in particular contributes a sensitivity to the sex scenes that is unlike what you would expect in a film with pornographic content, and gives a good portrayal of the young female single who longs for her one and only great love and tries to cope with her career, room mate and boyfriend. Supporting actress, Eileen Daly, adds both comedy and tragedy to her scenes, while French porn actress Ovidie is passable as a French actress who shows Anna around Paris and has a sexual encounter with her. However, it is Ovidie who contributes one of the trumps of the DVD release. Her audio commentary is very revealing on how different All About Anna is from standard pornographic films.

The storyline is told in episodes, an approach that works very well and obviously could allow for expanding with more episodes in the life of this young female. Unfortunately, the film, and particularly the cinematography, is a bit uneven, and it is obvious from the copious extra material on the DVD release that some of the original intentions had to be scrapped in order to make the final film. E.g. the sex scenes appear to have been originally intended to be longer and somewhat more explicit than in the final edit.

Despite the shortcoming of the production, I think the film successfully integrates the sex scenes into the storyline and character development. The DVD release is impeccable with several audio commentaries on different aspects of the production, a documentary on The Love-Making of All About Anna, trailers, unedited sequences, and even a director's original edit. As an extra bonus the distributor has added a third disc promoting pornographic films which gives further evidence to the stark contrast between All About Anna and the standard, more mechanical pornographic film.

I suppose that this film would appeal to a female audience, aged between say 18 and 38, who are able to identify with Gry Bay's portrayal of Anna, a young female looking for her one and only love. For the successful integration of sex scenes in the storyline, Gry Bay's portrayal of Anna, and the excellent DVD release, I give All About Anna 8 stars.

Awful, awful, awful... what a terrible excuse for a film, pathetic idea, poorly executed, terrible cast, the main guy is a Thor like douchebag of epic proportions! It's films like these that strike fear into my own heart when I think about directing a film, that I too may make something as God-awful and dreadful as this...

If you've ever seen "Sorted" by Alex Jovy, you'll have an idea of how vapid and terrible this film is...

If this is what happens with the "democratization" of filmmaking due to digital video cameras, I say bring back totalitarianism hence forth...

Just burn the master tapes, forget it ever happened...

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.