Mike takes a peek inside Artsploitation's latest release, Chasing The Muse.
The 1964 Supreme Court case Jacobellis vs. Ohio, in
which a movie theater owner was put on trial for showing a film the state
deemed to be obscene, is famously remembered for Justice Potter Stewart's
failure to define "hard core pornography", stating only that "I
know it when I see it." The line
between what is art and what is pornography has been debated since the advent
of film, with neither term getting as clear of a description as the one
provided by Justice Stewart. There are
lots of instances in film where the line between these two concepts in
particular is blurred, resulting in a beautiful but unflinching depiction of
physical and emotional love. Without the
raw emotion that defines eroticism, it would be difficult to see anything but
what is widely considered "pornography". This is where the documentary Chasing The
Muse lies, despite trying really, really hard to convince you that it's
actually art.
Chasing The Muse follows French filmmaker
Jean-Francois Davy as he travels Europe searching for a young woman to star in
one of his erotic films. The viewer
experiences Davy's, um, "casting" process, in which Davy basically
films nude women, or is filmed with them, in his search of transcendent sexual
beauty. The nudity is fairly graphic and
quite frequent, as there are only a handful of shots that do not feature some
mostly unclothed part of a woman's body.
Davy narrates the film, mostly in French, waxing intellectual about the
world's reversion to puritanical attitudes about sex or, of course, what
defines art versus pornography.
Unfortunately these thoughtful monologues about eroticism are often
rendered a bit ironic compared to the action on screen.
For someone who claims to be an artistic filmmaker, Davy
seems to have a bit of a problem with filming actual sex. The sex in Chasing The Muse (and
there's plenty of it) is dull and lifeless, free of the energy and eroticism
Davy claims to celebrate. Both
participants (including Davy) are expressionless throughout, taking an act of
intimacy and making it look like work.
Indeed, to many of the women in the film, it is (Davy often visited
brothels in search of his muse). If the
people in the film having sex appear to be bored, how should the audience be
expected to feel? Not to mention the
fact that the sex scenes are filmed sloppily, using unflattering angles, and
attempt to hide particularly naughty bits behind an overlay of the woman's eyes
or whatever. The result is an attempt at
eroticism that fails to be anything but the very opposite of erotic, and quite
uncomfortable.
Chasing The Muse is a difficult film to watch for a
number of reasons. Despite being about
raw sexuality, it somehow manages to make the sex it depicts routine and even
boring and at times slightly creepy.
It's basically a feature length PornHub video without the
self-awareness, pretending to be a smart, sexy, intellectual take on eroticism
in film. Davy aims high with Chasing
The Muse, but ends up with an unnerving, self-indulgent mess. Upon seeing Chasing The Muse, Justice
Stewart would likely conclude that it's nothing but dull, garden variety
pornography. It's safe to say many
viewers would share this sentiment.
Score
-Mike Stec
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