Erotic movie Destricted
Erotic movie ‘Destricted’ allowed to be screened outside British sex shops
Quentin Thomas, head of the British Board of Film Classification – that’s the United Kingdom’s censorship board – has explained why the BBFC has allowed the Anglo-American erotic movie Destricted to be shown outside British sex shops. Destricted is a compilation of sex-themed shorts directed by the likes of Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Marco Brambilla, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noé, Richard Prince, and Sam Taylor-Wood.
“In purpose and effect, this work is plainly a serious consideration of sex and pornography as aspects of the human experience,” Thomas stated. “We think that there are no grounds for depriving adults of the ability to decide themselves whether they want to see it.”
London’s Tate Modern Museum (website) will be screening Destricted in September. As quoted in Life Style Extra, a spokesperson for the museum stated that film “highlights controversial issues about the representation of sexuality in art, opening up for debate the question of whether art can be disguised as pornography, or vice versa, and leaving the viewer free to choose his or her own line through these intersections of art and sexuality.”
‘Destricted’ segments
Destricted is composed of the following erotic and/or sex-themed shorts:
- “Balkan Erotic Epic,” directed by Marina Abramovic
- “Hoist,” directed by Matthew Barney
- “Sync,” directed by Marco Brambilla
- “Four Letter Heaven,” directed by Cecily Brown
- “Impaled,” directed by Larry Clark
- “Scratch This,” directed by Sante D’Orazio
- “Green Pink Caviar,” directed by Marilyn Minter
- “We Fuck Alone,” directed by Gaspar Noé
- “House Call,” directed by Richard Prince
- “Death Valley,” directed by Sam Taylor-Wood
- “Cooking,” directed by Tunga
The Destricted cast features Shirin Barthel, Richard Blondel, Jasmine Byrne, John Saint John, Jasmine Byrne, Angela Stone, Kora Reed, Chris Raines, Sativa Rose, and Vicente Pinho Neto.
Source for the Quentin Thomas quote: United Press International.
Destricted photo: Revolver Entertainment.
‘The Da Vinci Code’ Banned in China & Pakistan
Via The [London] Independent: The Chinese government has ordered theater owners to stop showing Ron Howard’s adaptation of The Da Vinci Code. The Hollywood thriller has been in wide release in China for three weeks. As per the official story, the ban is supposed to make space for Chinese films – except that another Hollywood blockbuster, Ice Age: The Meltdown, is opening in China today.
This marks the first time that a foreign film has been pulled from Chinese theaters. The Catholic Church – whose local leaders have ties to the Communist government – have protested the showing of The Da Vinci Code and have asked Chinese Christians to boycott the film. The boycott, however, didn’t have much of an impact in a country where Catholics and Christians in general represent a small minority. The Da Vinci Code has already earned more than US$15 million, and was on its way to becoming one of the highest-grossing films ever in China.
“Islam teaches us to respect all the prophets of Allah Almighty and degradation of any prophet is tantamount to defamation of the rest.” So says Pakistan’s Culture Minister Ghulam Jamal in regard to the portrayal of the “prophet” Jesus in Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman’s film version of The Da Vinci Code, which has been called blasphemous by radical Christians as well.
Along with his cohorts, Jamal decides which movies Pakistanis can and cannot see. As a result, The Da Vinci Code is a no-no in Pakistan, at least until a more enlightened – and secular – government takes over. Additionally, the religious radicals in the Pakistani government are thinking of banning Dan Brown’s book as well. The suspense novel has been available for some time in that country.
It’s in cases such as this one that pirated DVDs and illegal Internet downloads of movies (or books) provide an undeniable sociopolitical service.
Quote source: BBC.
Fiji films
Ever wondered about the rules of the filmmaking game in Fiji? Then check out Rob Kay’s Fiji Guide. There’s a page on which Kay briefly talks about Hollywood films – His Majesty O’Keefe (1954), with Burt Lancaster; The Blue Lagoon (1980), with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins; and Cast Away(2000), with Tom Hanks – that were shot in Fiji.
Additionally, the Fiji Guide offers more specific information on the feature documentary Reel Paradise (2005), which is described as “one of the first movies ever made in Fiji where the landscape (much less the culture) served as more than a backdrop,” and on The Land Has Eyes / Pear ta ma ‘on maf (2004), which Kay says is “the only dramatic movie ever made with a Fijian theme. … Not surprisingly, the film was directed and written by [university professor and screenwriter] Vilsoni Hereniko who hails from Rotuma, where most of the movie was shot.”
2 comments
Marcus,
There were people in Britain - some sort of anti-screen-sex “family” group - that complained about the British Board rating for “Destricted.”
For those people, the worst thing that on-screen sex can achieve is to arouse film audiences. If that happens, wars will break out, famine and pestilence will destroy crops, tsunamis will ravage coastal areas, and a meteor will collide with the Earth.
Oh, yes, there’s also global warming. Think of all that heat in movie theaters, getting trapped by greenhouse gasses and quite possibly destroying the planet’s ozone layer. Come to think of it, perhaps the screen-sex police do have a laudable mission.
Sexuality is one thing that humankind will forever struggle with because of the aversion to nature that people have seemed to have developed over the centuries. Humankind thinks that the way people look, think, smell, etc. are wrong for reasons they never really explain. Sex being the ultimate expression of the human body has taken on the role of being one of the most vulgar aspects of our nature because it is all about the body and because of the learned discomfort with the physical. Sex even though it “really”isn’t will always be “controversial.” Bjork has a song called Human Behavior where she sings that there is “absolutley no logic to human behavior.” Sort of a shame that a girl who celebrates Halloween everday of her life is more in tune with reality than the rest of us, but maybe Halloween everyday isn’t such a bad thing. I have to go find my swan.