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This documentary purports to be a look
at the artwork, life and career of Australian
"fetish photographer" Noel Graydon. Sadly, that
is only about a third of the movie. This portion
of the film, if it were made by someone who
had any idea of how to shoot, record sound,
and edit a movie, might be somewhat interesting.
Instead, the doc is almost unintelligible with
bad sound recording coupled with a loud music
soundtrack that makes the poorly recorded dialogue
even more undecipherable. And, even more to
its detriment, it features subjects who almost
all speak with Australian accents which would
be hard enough to understand if the film were
made properly but here are nearly nonsensical
thank to all the technical deficiencies of the
film.
Filmmaker Michael Ney thinks he is making
great art but, unlike Graydon, he is not. His
film jettisons off on such tangential information
about the "underground" sex scene that the photographer
records that the film becomes a boring and unattractive
lesson in S&M lifestyles and mentalities. Graydon
is an interesting subject and a good filmmaker
could make a miniseries about his life and his
art. Instead, Ney spends the film as if he were
the teacher of Fetish 101 at a really bad junior
college. Graydon's work touches upon blood play,
needles, tattoos, uniforms, mummification, cock
and ball torture, big fat women, infantilism,
objectification, humiliation and degradation.
Anyone over 20 who has the Internet already
knows all they need to know about these subjects
to understand and appreciate Graydon's art.
But Ney treats his audience like idiots and
spends endless long and boring minutes giving
us pedantic takes on what theses sexual lifestyles
are supposedly all about. The worst scene in
the film has two "mistresses" (one an obviously
transgendered male) yammering on and on about
how interesting it is to deal with "submissives."
It's almost as juvenile as, "Oh I think its
so fascinating how a man will beg me to stop
kicking him in the nuts."
I could go on and on about how bad this
film is but let me be a better writer than Ney
is filmmaker and sum it up quickly and concisely
for you: There isn't a single naked person in
this film that you would actually want to see
naked. It's all flabby old fucks, the kind of
people who you would expect to see if you went
to a nudist colony. Yuck. Dude, if I wanted
to see an old flabby weirdo I wouldn't go to
a movie, I'd just look in a mirror.
It's a shame that someone as interesting
and compelling as Graydon has been reduced to
the nothingness that is his appearance in this
film. Check him out on the net or look for one
of his photo books but skip this video snoozefest.
Notes:
Ney is also producer, cinematographer and
editor. Three more jobs he sucks at.
The film debuted at the Cinekink Film Festival
in Australia in September of 2004. The film
was available for sale on DVD on the Internet
in September of 2005.
Viewed at Agliff in October of 2005.
Report Card
Content: D-
Completeness: F
Cinematography/Lighting: F
Special Effects/Make Up: F
Music: C
Final Grade: F
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