A couple weeks ago we announced the “Summer of Sex” in celebration of our steamiest two summer DVD releases: “Sex Stories” (just released this week!) and “Sex and the USA” (out July 27). Both films complement each other, since “Sex Stories” is more playful romp while “Sex and the USA” is more cautionary tale. They also serve as perfect bookends to the hottest time of year.
In this post, we’ll focus on “Sex Stories,” which plays like a French version of “Sex and the City” (only the sex scenes are far more explicit). The plot follows two groups of friends – one all male, the other all female – who congregate at two separate dinner parties. Needless to say, the conversations quickly turn salacious. Each dinner guest has a steamy story to tell, and each sexual escapade is depicted in a series of humorous – yet unflinchingly realistic – vignettes.
“Sex Stories” raises the question: how far can a sex scene go without pushing a film into the category of “adult” or, more bluntly, “porn?” Though the scenes of love-making are less veiled than the love scenes of usual mainstream cinema, the filmmakers’ intention is to entertain (and even educate) rather than arouse.
You may not be surprised to find that the film’s director – the mononymous Ovidie – is a former adult film actress and director. However, in recent years the intello du X (intellectual of the X), as she is often called in her home country, is more politician than pornographer. She’s a frequent political commentator and an advocate of sex workers’ rights – including equal treatment for women in the industry and increased awareness of health issues. But does Ovidie’s latest project succeed in redefining the boundaries of mainstream cinema? You be the judge.
Here is something that has always intrigued me and it's a topic that has gotten a friend and I into deep discussions. Sexual attitudes in films, or sexual content in films. A film's content will by and large be an indicator of a country's attitudes. Europeans, including those in the Central portion of the continent, tent to have a more 'freer' view of presenting sex in films. The French don't think it's a big deal to have an explicit sex scene or show graphic nudity in their films. Other European countries have fallen right in line. The US on the other hand, has, historically a very strident view of sex and what to show or not. It's almost as if we've attached a deep seeded shame to it. Where as other countries laugh at our prudishness. This is the 21st century so you would think that we would step up with the times, and our ratings board is a mirror in just how far we have yet to go. Our film industry, the mainstream industry, has clung to a system that is so arbitrary as to being ambiguous. Unless an individual is not in high school yet, a person has the right to make choices from himself or herself what they want to see. I was 14 when I saw my first 'R' film and that was Animal House with my dad! :-) But thanks to cable, I was seeing all matter of film. I was able to see all the great foreign and indie films I could only read about in the New York Times. I was thankful that my parents instill in us to have an open mind. And it was something I took with me in my film viewing 'career'. :-)
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