Destricted

'Destricted' is best described as seven short art-house porn films. None of them really succeeds as an interesting mix between art and porn, although 'Impaled' by director Larry Clark and 'Balkan Erotic Epic' by director Marina Abramovic have some interesting elements. The first shows a casting for a porn film, but not with the insecure women often displayed, but with insecure young men. The second shows myths from the Balkan around the sexual organs which makes a rather funny erotic little film.

'House Call' (from Richard Prince) is a vintage sex scene and comes, together with 'Impaled', closest to pornography. Maybe 'Sync' (Marco Brambilla) as well, but it only exists out of very, very fast cuts from different porn films and plays for about two minutes. 'Hoist' (Matthew Barney) is too much art, which becomes rather ridiculous with the sex, and 'Death Valley' opens with a beautiful shot only to continue with an 8-minute masturbation scene. I guess it does catch the essence of contemporary porn.

I have not mentioned Gaspar Noé's 'We F*ck Alone' where he seems to have made a stylistic sequel to his controversial 'Irréversible'. His use of the strobe makes this one quite hard to watch. The film itself, including a doll as a main character, becomes unintentionally funny. His film feels as a failed experiment, basically like 'Destricted' as a whole. The premise and some elements have their interesting things, but I can not think of a real audience for it.

I came across Destricted via an interest in the films of Matthew Barney, most of which I have seen and enjoyed. What I discovered was an extremely mixed bag of films. Through from the ersatz-revelatory documentary of Larry Clark to Richard Prince's House Call, which is quite literally in my opinion, the porn equivalent of Meshes of the Afternoon (whether or not that's a good idea or not is another matter). I've rated the whole movie 6/10 but we're really moving from 1/10 to 10/10 during different segments.

I felt Marina Abramovic's segment "Balkan Erotic Epic" contained some sort of interest, but it felt more like an alternative school history lesson, and lacked any sort of cinematic virtuosity. Simply put the film is about Balkan sex superstitions of the past.

Sam Taylor-Wood's segment is quite simply a man masturbating in Death Valley, what is up with that? I'm sure something was going on for Sam but she quite simply left me almost devoid of context.

Matthew Barney film about a man (The Greenman) 'using' (I am not allowed to write the appropriate word due to the comment guidelines) the drive-shaft of a massive suspended truck is interesting more in concept than in adaptation for the screen where it becomes merely pornographic rather than a thesis on sexual energy. To be fair it's also ripped from the womb of Barney's film De Lama Lamina and is so out of context here that it makes little sense. The driveshaft was lubricated with the faeces of a golden lion tamarin. Those of a nervous disposition stay away!

Marco Brambilla's very short piece was entirely devoid of interest to me, a flutter-by of pastel-coloured porno shots. Perhaps he achieved entirely what he aimed for. It was not exactly engaging. Quite astonishingly this is the guy who directed Demolition Man.

Gaspar Noe's section 'We **** Alone' was perhaps the most interesting of all the films, sex in this piece seem like an adjunct of solipsism (if you want to take each of the individuals involved as masturbators then you can, but for me they are having sex, it's just that we are being shown a visual metaphor of that process, which Noe sees as narcissistic; indeed if you accept the duality then the film is quite potent). He makes the film both numbing and alluring through his use of strobe effects and his soundtrack of heartbeats, breathing, and a baby eerily crying. It's clear that he is also passing a judgement, artistically and politically, which I don't think any of the others achieved (although they may have attempted), specifically with his use of match-cutting with TV porn when he's showing the man.

With Richard Prince's 'House Call' we have another film that is sonically intriguing. The material is almost certainly found footage. But his added value is the way he manipulates it with sounds, in an astounding manner. The story of a woman having sex with a house-visiting doctor becomes psychosexual rather than merely pornographic.

I wouldn't recommend Destricted to anyone I know, because it is extremely sexually graphic and people I know would think I was a weirdo if I started talking to them about it. But if what I've said has piqued your interest, see it by all means.

Destricted - an experimental collection of shorts by artists and film-makers exploring the subjects of sex, sexuality and pornography - didn't cause as much of a fuss as the creatives behind it were probably hoping for upon its release in 2006. While this is one of the most extreme films ever to be passed by the BBFC, it had to resort to an exploitative tactic when released on DVD by wrapping the box in a black seal as if what was inside was too explicit to be seen by anyone passing the art-house section of their local HMV. Truth be told, Destricted is no more shocking than late-night Babestation, and probably has just as much to say on our attitudes to sex.

The UK release featured a different line-up of films to the one released in the US, so I'll point out that I'm reviewing the UK version, which consists of seven shorts, the longest being 38 minutes and the shortest just over 2. I started with Larry Clark's Impaled, possible the most interesting film of the bunch. Clark interviews a roster of 18-23 year old males for a porn movie, and asks them about their sexual preferences. In an age where porn is readily available to anybody, it comes as no surprise that the interviewees prefer rough sex and ejaculating onto their partner's face. Shrewdly, Clark chooses the most softly-spoken and sweetest of the bunch, Daniel, who chooses older porn star Nancy to be his on- screen partner. Watching Nancy eat him alive has a strange poignancy to it.

Next up I saw Marina Abramovic's Balkan Erotic Epic, a strange and genuinely funny tale of pagan rituals told by the stern-looking Abramovic who struggles to speak English. The sight of naked men humping the ground and a group of women dancing and occasionally exposing their genitalia in the rain is bizarre and almost Pythonesque, and certainly raised my mood despite how cheap it looked. Richard Prince's House Call is a 13 minute re- contextualisation of an old porn scene, in which a busty young woman is visited by a well-hung doctor, who proceed to have ugly, hairy sex in a pleasantly aggression-free manner. Prince adds an eerie soundtrack and distorts the colour so much that the sexual organs on show looks like disgusting, slug-like creatures.

Marco Brambilla's Sync is a relief at just over 2 minutes, rapidly editing together hundreds of porn scenes to a drum-solo score. It's an interesting experiment, reminding us of the repetitive and formulaic nature of porn. Strangest of all the films on show is Matthew Barney's Hoist, which places a black actor with a gourd up his a**e underneath a five-ton struck, who proceeds to rub his erect penis on the lubricated drive-shaft of the vehicle. It is supposed to be a commentary on primitive man's relationship with machinery, but at almost 15 minutes long, it long outstays its welcome. By this point, I had seen enough flatulent and erect penises to last me a lifetime, which made the next film all the more painful. Sam Taylor- Wood's (now Taylor-Johnson) Death Valley has a man masturbate alone in the desert. For eight incredibly long minutes.

While I thought I was saving the best for last, I was actually saving the worst. Gaspar Noe's We F**k Alone feels like the cinematic equivalent of the director telling us that he's had a shitty day. Shot Irreversible-style and complete with constant strobe effects, the film has a man and a woman masturbate to same porn movie in two separate rooms. One enjoys a oversized teddy bear while the other face-f***s a blow-up doll with a gun. It's a terrible, hateful, and utterly pointless exercise, which, much like Destricted as a whole, has nothing interesting to say about sex and pornography. Porn can be formulaic, seedy, expressive and shamefully titillating. But anybody who has ever masturbated before will surely know this already, and won't have to put themselves through almost two hours of arty nonsense to come to this realisation.

I just watched this film at Sundance. Clearly the most challenging portion of this film for the audience was Gasper Noe's use of strobe for his part of the film titled We F--- Alone. A good fifth of the audience cleared out during We F--- because they were bothered by the strobing. During the Q&A following the film when asked why he used the effect Noe replied, "Because it looks better." The style used in We F--- Alone may not appeal to most audiences, but the premise of the film promised shorts by director's giving their impression of the world of porn and We F--- Alone was obviously Gasper Noe's take on the world of porn.

Other engaging portions of the film included Matthew Barney's Hoist, which involved a man having sex with a industrial machine lifted a dozen feet off the ground; Larry Clarks Doc/ Porn, hosting try outs for young men willing to satisfy their dreams of being a porn star; Marco Brambilla's amazing short splicing together frames from his own porn collection. The rest of the other shorts mixed in seemed to lack depth and were rather bland with the exception of Marina Abramovic's vignettes on superstitious Balkan sexual behavior which was very funny.

The movie is all that is promised and is an absorbing take on porn from these artistic talents. This isn't something to watch on a television and should be experienced in the theater environment.

Most of the films in this collection are simply silly. One is at least artistic in the old, wan sense of visual oddity.

There is one interesting one, though. Larry Clark's "Impaled." Its rather clever: young men seeking to get into the "business" are interviewed. All of them are sad losers and that saddest sack of the bunch is selected. He then interviews several women to select the one he wants to screw. They are all pros, and their stories and manner are every bit as sad, but posthope instead.

He selects the oldest; she obviously tries the hardest to entice him. She's 40 and desperate to appear alluring. If we had nothing but her manner, we'd have enough to damn.

He's most excited about anal sex. He ends up getting defecated on, but they soldier on until the end.

Its a great take on the ugly behind of the industry.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.