Saturday, March 30, 2013

in passing: Hong Kong International Film Festival 2013

Jungle Love, Sherad Anthony Sanchez, 2012

More arthouse smut. Although unfortunatly most arthouse distributors wouldn't touch a film like this with a stick. If Longing for the Rain could be a very distant cousin of seventies erotic cinema with its open-ended plotlines and protagonists driven by real curiosity, then Sherad Anthony Sanchez' gloriously disjointed, unashamedly vulgar Jungle Love takes its cues from modern day, web-based, gonzo-style pornography; minus the ugliness and the dictatorship of the pleasure principle. Everyone's not the same when it comes to sex; this simple insight changes everything. The unedited POV-style scenes observing people talking (to off-screen-voices) about their bodies, their tattoos, their sexual preferences, or something else entirely might feel aggressive in the beginning, however, all these scenes rapidly evolve into elaborate playacting. Nobody's in control.

In one scene in Sherad Anthony Sanchez' masterpiece Imburnal some young guys spy on couples making love in the barely lit sewers; no context, just some strange, unknown bodies moving around and glowing in the dark. Jungle Love feels like an extension of this scene; not of the sex itself, but of the imaginary aspect of it (that is, its poetics has something in common with the gaze of the curious, inexperienced boys). The jungle isn't a place of primitive, uncodified fulfilment, but of various erotic potentials, which might or might not be realized.

Petal Dance, Hiroshi Ishikawa, 2013

If this is realism, why does your clothing style always exactly fit the landscapes you cross? (Not a bad film, though)

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