Destricted (2006) User Reviews (22)

Interesting but failed experiment

[rbverhoef · 5/10 · 3 March 2007]

'Destricted' is best described as seven short art-house porn films. None of them really succeeds as an interesting mix between art and porn, although 'Impaled' by director Larry Clark and 'Balkan Erotic Epic' by director Marina Abramovic have some interesting elements. The first shows a casting for a porn film, but not with the insecure women often displayed, but with insecure young men. The second shows myths from the Balkan around the sexual organs which makes a rather funny erotic little film.

'House Call' (from Richard Prince) is a vintage sex scene and comes, together with 'Impaled', closest to pornography. Maybe 'Sync' (Marco Brambilla) as well, but it only exists out of very, very fast cuts from different porn films and plays for about two minutes. 'Hoist' (Matthew Barney) is too much art, which becomes rather ridiculous with the sex, and 'Death Valley' opens with a beautiful shot only to continue with an 8-minute masturbation scene. I guess it does catch the essence of contemporary porn.

I have not mentioned Gaspar Noé's 'We F*ck Alone' where he seems to have made a stylistic sequel to his controversial 'Irréversible'. His use of the strobe makes this one quite hard to watch. The film itself, including a doll as a main character, becomes unintentionally funny. His film feels as a failed experiment, basically like 'Destricted' as a whole. The premise and some elements have their interesting things, but I can not think of a real audience for it.

Porn for art students, boring for the rest of us

[noizyme · 3/10 · 17 October 2010]

I feel that I somewhat gave this DVD some disservice by fast-forwarding through most of it. I'm rather tired of people over-analyzing sex on film as potential for art. I think it would be more original to produce a series of paintings made by couples covered in paint, screwing on top a canvas. What we get with this collection is an offbeat tale of a village and their exposition of breasts and bums, a guy and his fetish for rubbing himself against moving machinery, a rather well-done collection of spliced sex scenes one-after-another, an interview of several individuals for a trial-screw for a porn actor's first experience on camera, a jarring, strobe-lit piece on a guy defiling a doll and a girl getting it on with a stuffed doll, a scene from a porno, and a guy beating off in the desert. That's it, no more, no less. This is the UK version I watched, so the scenes do change with the US version, but the idea is the same.

I don't know if the idea was to shock the audience into understanding that sex can be artistic, but it didn't work on me. I've seen far sicker things multiple times, so the shock factor definitely isn't there. As for the art of it all, the only piece that I would expect to see in a museum of any sort would be Marco Brambilla's "Sync," the spliced-sex scenes. The rest of this really loses me, and it's a shame more women directors were not on-board for this project because, although the results were laughable, Marina Abramovic's "Balkan Erotic Epic" was, at least, different from the others. For the work put into each one, I gave that an extra star than I would have if this was some college hack work, but they spent some time with this, even if the results were confusing and boring.

More vulgar than artsy

[Imdbidia · 3/10 · 8 February 2011]

Destricted is a reflection on sex, sexuality and x-rated movies trough seven director's approaches and stories - Marina Abramović (Balkan Erotic Epic), Matthew Barney Hoist), Marco Brambilla (Sync), Larry Clark (Impaled), Gaspar Noé (We Fck Alone), Richard Prince (House Call), Sam Taylor-Wood (Death Valley).

The only film that really stood out was "Hoist", which is a very innovative idea, and very well filmed; however, the images of the crane/perforating machine and their real drivers with their faces pixeled rested credibility to the piece. I mean, those people don't add anything to the "story" and, therefore, their presence was unnecessary. If the director really wanted them, why not using actors with unpixeled faces?

I found very interesting "Balkan Erotic Epic", a mostly ethnographic piece, which tells the viewer about how sex is embedded in traditional oral culture in the Balkans. The film mixes surreal beautiful images with schematic animation and the director addressing the viewer with pieces of information. It felt like a pastiche, some of the art in there wasted.

"Impaled" departs from a good idea and exploration of the adult industry. The director put an add on a newspaper searching for candidates for an amateur sex movie. The guys are interviewed on camera and talk about sexuality and adult movies, and show their bodies and genitals to the camera. The director chooses a winner, who then has to interview different adult actresses, see their naked bodies, and choose his favourite for fulfilling his sexual fantasy, in this case having anal sex. The interviews were very interesting, and also listening to the actresses talking about what they do. The problem with the doc is that ends being gross and vulgar, filmed as cheaply as an amateur cheap adult film would be, but without the naturalism and feeling of real amateurs having sex in front of a camera.

Noe's "We fcuk alone" is a big disappointment. His overuse of strobist images is completely unnecessary, and ends being the whole point of the "story" not what happens in it. Without the strobist approach, the film might have been more confronting and interesting, especially if you have something to say about sex. The strobist images in a continuous way, during the whole piece, made me feel sick and, therefore, nothing of what was happening in the story was interesting. Fcking alone and hallucinogen unsettling images are put at the same level.

"House Call" is an adult sex movie, old style, but straight forward nevertheless. No artistry there, either.

"Death Valley" is just a dreadful piece with a guy massaging his willy in the great outdoors... Where is the artistry?

Finally, "Sync: is a very short pastiche of sex images, taken from x-rated films mixed with powerful music.

The movie, overall, has two main problems. The first, and the most important one, is the lack of artistry, despite what the authors and producers intended to. Secondly, the film mixes apples with bananas, so to speak, documentaries, with pieces of fiction, with straight x-movies. In other words, sex is the only common thing. But sex is a too-wide subject to make a movie about unless you set boundaries and decide which aspects or themes you want to explore. As a result, there is not harmony in the movie, as the different pieces are patch-worked and not jigsawed into something bigger. This would have not mattered had the pieces been filmed with artistry and talent, which is rarely seen. Perhaps, a series of short documentaries/films on specific concrete sexual themes would have been more effective.

The movie ends being a gross pastiche of vulgar images, with hardly artistic value and creative talent, which supposed to be the point of the same.

aimless piece of modern "art"

[dragokin · 2/10 · 23 March 2013]

Although i'm trying very hard, i can remember only three segments of the movie. This fact alone might give you an overall impression, despite the fact that i was mainly interested in their authors.

Marina Abramovic offered a pseudo-ethnographic study about the relation between sex and language, in particular bad language, in the Balkans. The result is a literal translation of curses into English. Try the same thing in a bar with friends and you'll get a couple of laughs, but no-one would call it art.

Matthew Barney was on the trail of his Cremaster series, with less costumes and plain mise-en-scène, though. What happened on screen was at the same time obvious and difficult to explain. In line with modern art where the act (masturbation) precedes the context (if any), it leaves you to read-in the meaning you might associate with it.

Larry Clark, on the other hand, made an audition for a porn movie. Due to it's sheer realism, this segment was the only one to make sense, but left me wondering why should i watch it instead of browsing the internet for free porn.

Art aficionados, in particular those into modern art, will probably love Destricted. Others would have other films to watch...

Tedious collection of shorts that have nothing interesting to say about sex or pornography

[tomgillespie2002 · 3/10 · 22 September 2016]

Destricted - an experimental collection of shorts by artists and film-makers exploring the subjects of sex, sexuality and pornography - didn't cause as much of a fuss as the creatives behind it were probably hoping for upon its release in 2006. While this is one of the most extreme films ever to be passed by the BBFC, it had to resort to an exploitative tactic when released on DVD by wrapping the box in a black seal as if what was inside was too explicit to be seen by anyone passing the art-house section of their local HMV. Truth be told, Destricted is no more shocking than late-night Babestation, and probably has just as much to say on our attitudes to sex.

The UK release featured a different line-up of films to the one released in the US, so I'll point out that I'm reviewing the UK version, which consists of seven shorts, the longest being 38 minutes and the shortest just over 2. I started with Larry Clark's Impaled, possible the most interesting film of the bunch. Clark interviews a roster of 18-23 year old males for a porn movie, and asks them about their sexual preferences. In an age where porn is readily available to anybody, it comes as no surprise that the interviewees prefer rough sex and ejaculating onto their partner's face. Shrewdly, Clark chooses the most softly-spoken and sweetest of the bunch, Daniel, who chooses older porn star Nancy to be his on- screen partner. Watching Nancy eat him alive has a strange poignancy to it.

Next up I saw Marina Abramovic's Balkan Erotic Epic, a strange and genuinely funny tale of pagan rituals told by the stern-looking Abramovic who struggles to speak English. The sight of naked men humping the ground and a group of women dancing and occasionally exposing their genitalia in the rain is bizarre and almost Pythonesque, and certainly raised my mood despite how cheap it looked. Richard Prince's House Call is a 13 minute re- contextualisation of an old porn scene, in which a busty young woman is visited by a well-hung doctor, who proceed to have ugly, hairy sex in a pleasantly aggression-free manner. Prince adds an eerie soundtrack and distorts the colour so much that the sexual organs on show looks like disgusting, slug-like creatures.

Marco Brambilla's Sync is a relief at just over 2 minutes, rapidly editing together hundreds of porn scenes to a drum-solo score. It's an interesting experiment, reminding us of the repetitive and formulaic nature of porn. Strangest of all the films on show is Matthew Barney's Hoist, which places a black actor with a gourd up his a**e underneath a five-ton struck, who proceeds to rub his erect penis on the lubricated drive-shaft of the vehicle. It is supposed to be a commentary on primitive man's relationship with machinery, but at almost 15 minutes long, it long outstays its welcome. By this point, I had seen enough flatulent and erect penises to last me a lifetime, which made the next film all the more painful. Sam Taylor- Wood's (now Taylor-Johnson) Death Valley has a man masturbate alone in the desert. For eight incredibly long minutes.

While I thought I was saving the best for last, I was actually saving the worst. Gaspar Noe's We F**k Alone feels like the cinematic equivalent of the director telling us that he's had a shitty day. Shot Irreversible-style and complete with constant strobe effects, the film has a man and a woman masturbate to same porn movie in two separate rooms. One enjoys a oversized teddy bear while the other face-f***s a blow-up doll with a gun. It's a terrible, hateful, and utterly pointless exercise, which, much like Destricted as a whole, has nothing interesting to say about sex and pornography. Porn can be formulaic, seedy, expressive and shamefully titillating. But anybody who has ever masturbated before will surely know this already, and won't have to put themselves through almost two hours of arty nonsense to come to this realisation.

The "art" in the porn

[Orri-4 · 2/10 · 2 October 2006]

Certainly politically correct, that is a danger sign in any film. Politically correct by focusing mostly on men and porn. This film was almost just like any other porn film. The tiny difference being the "art". Strobe light was the "art" in We f...ck alone (it was way too long. I got the "message" after 5 minutes). The "art" in Death Valley was none what so ever. Just a guy masturbating outdoors. I read on IMDb that the "art" was the fact it was shot in that particular valley. If you use your imagination, you can see art in everything. That is wonderful. Hoist was least like a porn, but 15 minutes of a man rubbing his penis to a machine shaft was OK ("art" and everything) for 5 minutes. In the film Impaled we saw the audition room instead of the "bed". It was amusing to see the young guys expressing their sexual desires. The "art" in Impaled was the bad lighting. I would have chosen the virgin. I went to the film expecting nothing, and I got nothing. A man cannot ask for more on a night at the movies.

Ho hum contemplation of sex by some good directors is dull rather than enlightening

[dbborroughs · 3/10 · 11 July 2007]

Destricted is a collection of seven short films dealing with sex, love and pornography. The films range from about three minutes to thirty minutes. The films were made by various film makers and artists of note, regrettably the films them self are not.

The best of the films is Sync, which is a three minute rapid fire sequence cut together from other films where people have sex. Its a blistering paced lust story that is a technical triumph however you slice it.

The rest of the films are a pretty lackluster bunch. The best of these is possibly Gaspar Noe's 25 minute film representation of what sex really is. and is summed up by it title that appears at the end. Made with a strobing effect that is migraine inducing, it would be a great film if it ran about a third of its length since if you're clever you'll know what the punch line is.

Larry Clark's half hour interview/sex film is okay but ultimately rather dull, which I think is the point. Point or not I don't need to watch a film to be bored. It would be better if it went somewhere other than into ennui.

Everything else was a waste of time. Sure they all looked good, but they had no life in them. To my eyes they appeared more fake and unreal than most adult films I've run across.

Unless you're fan of one of the directors (I got suckered into seeing this because of Gaspar Noe ) I would avoid this at all costs. Its neither erotic nor thought provoking, rather its just dull.

Dirty

[tedg · 8 November 2006]

Most of the films in this collection are simply silly. One is at least artistic in the old, wan sense of visual oddity.

There is one interesting one, though. Larry Clark's "Impaled." Its rather clever: young men seeking to get into the "business" are interviewed. All of them are sad losers and that saddest sack of the bunch is selected. He then interviews several women to select the one he wants to screw. They are all pros, and their stories and manner are every bit as sad, but posthope instead.

He selects the oldest; she obviously tries the hardest to entice him. She's 40 and desperate to appear alluring. If we had nothing but her manner, we'd have enough to damn.

He's most excited about anal sex. He ends up getting defecated on, but they soldier on until the end.

Its a great take on the ugly behind of the industry.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Extremely Uneven Anthology

[Tomsa_Wing · 4/10 · 29 September 2007]

Of all the art house anthology films you may have heard of (Coffee and Cigarettes; Paris, I Love You; Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould), the subject of Destricted is by far the most intriguing, and fans of Larry Clark especially might be drawn to this piece for his large contribution. However, while the concept of sex as an art form is explored here, it isn't perfected. The best pieces, "Balkan Erotic Epic" and "Hoist", are really the only ones that are fully distinct from pornography. The former is somewhat of a satire of strange sexual practices, while the latter is an abstract piece about a man with plantlike qualities who finds himself attracted to a machine. Larry Clark's piece, "Impaled", is also not terrible, but it is also distinctly pornographic. Unlike his earlier works, Clark allows the sex to be fully filmed here, and he loses his artistic flair in letting the actors control the scene. It begins as a documentary about the effects of pornography on youth, but ends up as a thinly veiled casting couch session.

The remainder are of varying quality, all of which would have been improved by trimming the run time, and two of which ("Sync"; "We F*** Alone") should probably have a warning for epileptics.

It's worth watching this film for its innovation, but you'll probably want to have the fast forward button ready when you do.

Extremely mixed

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 6/10 · 5 March 2008]

I came across Destricted via an interest in the films of Matthew Barney, most of which I have seen and enjoyed. What I discovered was an extremely mixed bag of films. Through from the ersatz-revelatory documentary of Larry Clark to Richard Prince's House Call, which is quite literally in my opinion, the porn equivalent of Meshes of the Afternoon (whether or not that's a good idea or not is another matter). I've rated the whole movie 6/10 but we're really moving from 1/10 to 10/10 during different segments.

I felt Marina Abramovic's segment "Balkan Erotic Epic" contained some sort of interest, but it felt more like an alternative school history lesson, and lacked any sort of cinematic virtuosity. Simply put the film is about Balkan sex superstitions of the past.

Sam Taylor-Wood's segment is quite simply a man masturbating in Death Valley, what is up with that? I'm sure something was going on for Sam but she quite simply left me almost devoid of context.

Matthew Barney film about a man (The Greenman) 'using' (I am not allowed to write the appropriate word due to the comment guidelines) the drive-shaft of a massive suspended truck is interesting more in concept than in adaptation for the screen where it becomes merely pornographic rather than a thesis on sexual energy. To be fair it's also ripped from the womb of Barney's film De Lama Lamina and is so out of context here that it makes little sense. The driveshaft was lubricated with the faeces of a golden lion tamarin. Those of a nervous disposition stay away!

Marco Brambilla's very short piece was entirely devoid of interest to me, a flutter-by of pastel-coloured porno shots. Perhaps he achieved entirely what he aimed for. It was not exactly engaging. Quite astonishingly this is the guy who directed Demolition Man.

Gaspar Noe's section 'We **** Alone' was perhaps the most interesting of all the films, sex in this piece seem like an adjunct of solipsism (if you want to take each of the individuals involved as masturbators then you can, but for me they are having sex, it's just that we are being shown a visual metaphor of that process, which Noe sees as narcissistic; indeed if you accept the duality then the film is quite potent). He makes the film both numbing and alluring through his use of strobe effects and his soundtrack of heartbeats, breathing, and a baby eerily crying. It's clear that he is also passing a judgement, artistically and politically, which I don't think any of the others achieved (although they may have attempted), specifically with his use of match-cutting with TV porn when he's showing the man.

With Richard Prince's 'House Call' we have another film that is sonically intriguing. The material is almost certainly found footage. But his added value is the way he manipulates it with sounds, in an astounding manner. The story of a woman having sex with a house-visiting doctor becomes psychosexual rather than merely pornographic.

I wouldn't recommend Destricted to anyone I know, because it is extremely sexually graphic and people I know would think I was a weirdo if I started talking to them about it. But if what I've said has piqued your interest, see it by all means.

He's lost it (possible spoilers)

[svaw · 1/10 · 2 February 2006]

This is hilarious to the point of making you cry. Gaspar Noe has compiled a series of exposures of sexual behaviour. The whole thing is packaged like a pop video complete with the inevitable strobe. I have to admit there were some moments that made an impact like the neatly clipped young men auditioning for the porn film, so sad, what are we doing? What is Noe doing making it all seem so beside the point?

In all Gaspar Noe has to be one of the most sexually explicit directors of the moment, but he does not seem able to depict sex with love.

In his films we are distanced from sex like it is strange packaged, a view of a lonely unfulfilled man perhaps. The man with the monster penis and the machine is a sight I will never forget.

large brown slugs and very long breasts need not be feared

[petcrows · 10/10 · 23 January 2006]

The film contains some shorts about sexuality and pornography. At first we are presented with what looks like a gigantic brownish slug. It was not with shock & horror that the giant darkened slug was viewed by the audience. Rather, the giant slug was greeted with amazement and laughter. The giant slug turns out to be the thankfully in-tact penis of a man who is suspended within a gigantic machine he was making love to. Thankfully the man's penis and testicles aren't torn off by the shaft of the machine, as some lubricant and plastic are present.

In another short we get to see a young man play doctor with a nice regular looking female. The innocence and humor are poignant.

In another we get to see several young and old Balkan women. They either stand and sing with their breasts showing, or they ran around in traditional frocks briefly flashing their vulvas. We also learned about Balkan sexual folklore, such as how their men used to put their penises in holes drilled in wooden bridges so as to prevent impotence. Several other fascinating and funny tales are told.

Another great short starts with several young men being interviewed to be in an adult film. Each talks about their experiences with exposure to porn, and each ends up showing their shaven packages. The showing reveals a certain vulnerability and common humanity between them. Eventually the short producers choose one from the group, and he then gets to interview prospective women who're going to be in the supposed adult film within the short. He ends up selecting the forty year old woman - a lady who is outrageously overt toward him, and who most strongly fits the stereotype of an impish porn star.

The key things revealed in the short are: the vulnerability and tender commonness of human sexuality; the silliness which comes from all the fakery present in regular porn; what it's like for a young male who's been exposed to porn to finally get to have sex with a porn actress; and the strange mix of beauty and silliness that is present in commercial porn. The short wasn't really "porn" itself, it was an effigy of it, a clearly focused full color shadow or impression or view, a clear caricature illustrating what commercialized porn is: some beauty; some realism; some fakery; some pandering; some silliness; some crassness, although there was no crassness in the short itself.

In another short we see several less-than-a-second shots from various porn films.

In another we see a panning shot of the breathtakingly beautiful Death Valley and a man masturbating on the ground there. His struggle for release and his subsequent exhaustion is shown.

In another we see a man and a woman separately watching adult films and masturbating in their own separate bedrooms. Our view of the movie flashes at about seven times per second, and there's repetitive music and faint baby cries heard. We see the young man screwing a plastic doll. We see the woman with her fingers up her vulva. Each are alone. This short illustrated several things including that even when we are having sex the experiences we're having are our own.

In a final shot for the film a line of men in presumably Balkan costumes are all standing with their erect members, which slowly deflate as we all watch. One audience member comments "concentrate" in an attempt to help the men maintain their stature.

Here's the impressions I was left with after the entire film concluded: 1. That porn and open expressions of human sexuality in film should not be feared. Those who fear it simply haven't seen enough of it. Seeing enough helps one realize what porn is. It's not a substitute for real in person interaction. Some couples in western countries use it to help enhance their real in person interactions. Some individuals use it to either help educate themselves about the functionality of human sexuality, or to "get by" during times when they're alone. What is revealed through extensive viewing of humans having sex, in whatever context, is that there is beauty and strangeness and silliness. Everyone has their own tastes. Some more educated more sensitive types probably prefer material which is less crass and more authentic. More real, and less directed and less micro-managed. More true to life.

Also, a lot of exposure to such material does not result in moral degradation. Rather, it results in several things. In part we come to see human sexuality as something akin to the work in a sausage factory. To a birth. To a biological process we get to observe & participate in. To joy, pain, strangeness, a recognition of our connection with all organic life. It's all skin on skin. Flesh on flesh. It's living. Get used to it.

2. That authentic expressions of human sexuality in movies should be celebrated. I'd personally rather see independent films focus on such things, because most anything Hollywood touches turns to crass commercialized crap. So, films like Caligula, Intimacy, 9 Songs, the works of Tinto Brass, and the Pier Paolo Pasolini films such as The Decameron, and The Canterbury Tales - all these films, and this most recent film Destricted, are revolutionary in that they show: That what some of us fear and loath need not be feared, when stared in the face.

3. The human sexuality is pedestrian and beautiful at the same time. Common. Tender. Personal, but public as well. Experientially individual and shared simultaneously. Sometimes intimate and sometimes detached. Overly hyped by some. But not valued enough by others.

At Sundance '06 some of us got to stare a huge slug in the face. The slug moved. The slug grew. But in the end, we found it was just a part of being human and being alive.

Oh Destricted, you gem of perversion.

[manbitesdog-1 · 7/10 · 9 February 2006]

If you don't already know, Destricted is basically a collection of shorts about pornography by famous directors from around the world. At points it could be a little overwhelming but as a whole left me feeling pretty gratified. Here is a quick rundown of the shorts:

While these are just descriptions, they may contain spoilers so be warned.

Hoist directed by Matthew Barney.

Hoist is about a man who has sex with a 50 ton bulldozer that is suspended above the ground from a crane. It shows him being intimate with the machine and for Barney (Cremaster Cycle) fans it will not disappoint. It maintains the ominous tones of his other films and succeeds in being beautiful and downright scary at the same time.

House Call directed by Richard Prince.

House call is basically a flat-out 70's style porn shot off of a television. It shows a woman oiling herself up then making a phone call. Then a guy comes over and they have sex. It's primarily in slow motion and is accompanied by a soundtrack played off of what sounds like a tape recorder. The music I found to be the most enjoyable about the film, especially the part where the tape is rewound then plays again.

Impaled directed by Larry Clark.

Larry Clark's documentary about porn is by far the best film is the collected works of Destricted. It shows the casting session for a porn where Clark himself interviews the males for the part. After selecting one of the men to be in the film he lets them interview which woman he wants to have sex with. Then in the end they have sex. It is pretty nonchalant and matter of fact as it plays out, talking about and showing anal sex and blow-jobs and breasts and balls and everything else that comes with porn. It does however introduce a human element into the mix so it doesn't come across as just straight porn. Oddly enough you actually feel connections with the cast which makes it a great film and not just straight forward sleaze. It is also hilarious, be it intentional or unintentional, specifically the scene where the star pulls out of his mate's ass and gets poop on him, then explains how he thought that was gross and how he didn't think ahead too much.

Sync directed by Marco Brambilla.

Brambilla demonstrates his patients and editing skills in this rapid-fire short which is basically a fluid montage of porn sex scenes lasting only half a second or so in duration but flow to make a consistent image. It runs for about three minutes but is amazing and almost intoxicating as it unravels.

Death Valley directed by Sam Taylor-Wood.

A man walks through the desert and masturbates for about ten minutes. There it is...

Balkan Erotic Epic directed by Marina Abramovic

This short provided a lot of humor which was needed to break up the blatantly raw sexuality of this series (you can only watch people masturbating or swallowing cum for so long). The film plays out like an old-wives tale, detailing how men would have sex with the earth to ensure a good crop season or how women would insert fish into their nether region, then go to be and sleep then wake up in the morning, extract the fish, grind it up and put it into their husbands coffee granting them eternal love. It is actually pretty funny and provides some truly beautiful images, even if they appear a little bizarre.

We F-ck Alone directed by Gaspar Noé.

This was the reason I wanted to see Destricted. Being a huge fan of I Stand Alone and Irreversible I was adamant about seeing his new short. It begins with a porn on the screen then cuts to a young woman masturbating in a her bedroom and a young man masturbating in his. It had Gaspar's signature tones and didn't fail to empty the theater much like his other efforts. The reason for people leaving was more than likely because the entire short strobed. We were warned before entering the theater that if we were epileptic that there was a segment that could hurt us. AND HOW. It was almost unbearable but like always I succumbed and fell into a trance and enjoyed the film from start to finish, even if it wasn't as technically or aesthetically pleasing, it was an experience altogether and truly played upon the senses.

Sexy time...?

[punishmentpark · 5/10 · 19 November 2013]

'Balkan Erotic Epic' _____ (director) Marina Abramović tells the viewer about some folkloric facts from the Balkan concerning men and women engaging in certain sexual (or close to that, I suppose) acts to gain better crops, happiness or such, combined with animation and a few arty outdoor scenes. Fascinating in a way, and even confronting to learn of man's superstitions yet again. Some nice folk singing, but cinematically nothing special beyond some nice imagery and the okay animated parts. (4)

'Sync' _____ Stupendously simple and boring fast collage of porn images combined with a fast, but rather dull, drum solo. Good thing it's so short. (1)

'Hoist' _____ Starts with a good and original little idea which, erm, grows... bring on the machinery and the stuntman. Highly contemplative, somewhat homo-erotic and even looked pretty dangerous to me. Good, or at the very least, fascinating stuff. (8)

'Impaled' _____ An interesting documentary approach, but hard to figure what these opinions of bothered young men and experienced porn stars (only the amazing Sativa Rose did I recognize) are really worth... Still, interesting and sincere. And then, the impaling... A rather painful act to watch, in more than one way. But now he knows. (6)

'We f*ck alone' _____ A poor example of Noé's familiar style with the flashing and the... I forget what music it was. The idea is simple, but hardly interesting, and the point of dragging it out like that is beyond me... I skipped about 10 out of 23 (!) minutes. (2)

'House call' _____ (original, I assume?) '70s porn on an old TV (filmed so up-close, one can see the 'squares' on the screen) with a soundtrack that sounded like Sigur Ros. Colorful, vintage nudity and eerie, mesmerizing music. Kind of fun. (6) -EDIT- It turns out that the beautiful lady here is vintage porn star Dawn Knudsen (which is very much like Fawn Knudsen - guess where that's from? Yes, indeed 'The big Lebowski') aka Dee Dee aka Dawn Wallace aka etc., I don't know why it says Kora Reed here on IMDb...

'Death valley' _____ A big, muscular man gets on his knees somewhere in Death Valley with beautiful mountains behind him and jerks off. He changes position a few times, so I'm assuming it wasn't an easy feat. Not exactly fun, but somehow understandable to want to put 'man against nature' this way. (6)

In conclusion: there is some interesting stuff here, though I had expected more actual storytelling with actual actors over plain nudity, porn, genitals, etc.. 4 + 1 + 8 + 6 + 2 + 6 + 6 divided by 7 results in about 4,7142857142857142857142etc., which I will round up to 5.

Matthew Barney alone

[EdgarST · 17 May 2012]

If anybody takes a brief look at the filmographies of the persons who directed the segments of "Destrictred", he or she will discover that only a few of them are full-time directors. Marco Brambilla, for example, made a couple of movies in the 1990s, while others had never directed a film. So it comes to no surprise that this is a worst-than-irregular film, and that there is little elaboration and sometimes no originality at all in the string of segments that pretend "to illuminate the points where art meets sexuality". Gaspar Noé and Larry Clark are probably the best known directors of the lot, but it is experimental artist Matthew Barney who in my opinion has made a visually striking erotic film piece (that deserves a much higher rating than the 2 points I have given to the whole film), that has little to do with narcissistic penetrations, oral somersaults and other jaded depictions of sex. His art works have already dealt with the matter on the table, and maybe he knows best. Not a good film if you ask me, and a little on the "waste-of-your-time" side.

Just bizarre

[gilligan-11 · 5/10 · 18 June 2011]

By far one of the oddest collection of short films I have ever seen, "Destricted" is more of a curiosity than a form of entertainment. As I viewed these experimental films (most of which lack any sort of dialogue or coherent narrative), I began to sense that I had not taken nearly enough film studies courses to appreciate what I was watching. The films range from the simply weird (a montage of a woman—I think—lapping up various viscous substances from a glass table, shot entirely from underneath the table) to the bizarrely erotic (a naked man, with a turnip protruding from his rectum, masturbating against the rotating driveshaft of a tractor). This collection of films contains a great deal of nudity and explicit sex, yet the most interesting film in the bunch is Larry Clark's documentary, which features interviews with a number of mostly ordinary looking young men and haggard-looking porn actresses discussing their sexual experiences. Purportedly a series of auditions for a porn flick, Clark's film culminates with one lucky young man consummating his experience with one of the actresses. This film is interesting in the broadest sense of the word, but certainly not for the modest, the faint of heart, or the easily shocked. Worth seeing, but probably just once.

Obscene, Rude, Edgy and Pretty Damn Funny

[filmfortheblind · 7/10 · 21 January 2006]

I just watched this film at Sundance. Clearly the most challenging portion of this film for the audience was Gasper Noe's use of strobe for his part of the film titled We F--- Alone. A good fifth of the audience cleared out during We F--- because they were bothered by the strobing. During the Q&A following the film when asked why he used the effect Noe replied, "Because it looks better." The style used in We F--- Alone may not appeal to most audiences, but the premise of the film promised shorts by director's giving their impression of the world of porn and We F--- Alone was obviously Gasper Noe's take on the world of porn.

Other engaging portions of the film included Matthew Barney's Hoist, which involved a man having sex with a industrial machine lifted a dozen feet off the ground; Larry Clarks Doc/ Porn, hosting try outs for young men willing to satisfy their dreams of being a porn star; Marco Brambilla's amazing short splicing together frames from his own porn collection. The rest of the other shorts mixed in seemed to lack depth and were rather bland with the exception of Marina Abramovic's vignettes on superstitious Balkan sexual behavior which was very funny.

The movie is all that is promised and is an absorbing take on porn from these artistic talents. This isn't something to watch on a television and should be experienced in the theater environment.

More contemporary art than contemporary cinema

[Chris_Docker · 8/10 · 24 September 2006]

(Due to the 1000 word limit I've trimmed this review by over a third: apologies if some of the notes on films in this seven-film collection are therefore rather brief.)

Andy Warhol once said, "An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them." Destricted doesn't fit into convenient mainstream or even art-house niches, but is more like a Tate Modern exhibit. It would be hard to identify a 'market' for the film, yet it is undoubtedly of some merit.

Destricted is a collection of shorts linked by a common theme. Two of them are directed by acclaimed film directors and the other five are made by heavyweights (two of them women) from the world of contemporary art. All were invited to make films on their views of sex and pornography.

The films in Destricted are mostly iconographic or impersonal fabrications. They distil essential elements into images that remain long after they are viewed. Each uses different artistic techniques, and each is worthy of serious study - although cinema audiences' reactions may also include boredom and amusement.

The most accessible section of the film (and the most linear in format) is Impaled by Larry Clark. Clark examines the effect pornography has on youngsters, but his film goes further, looking at the human dynamics and insecurities of the porn industry and making a porn film. He interviews young male pornstar wannabees, in discussions that are almost like a shrink session, asking them about their sexual experience, preferences and use of pornography. One of them is a virgin. Many have quite understandable hang-ups about their bodies. Asked what sort of things they would like to do, they all express an interest in anal sex. When they undress, nearly all of them are shaved. These last two characteristics, although only evinced by a minority of the general population, are frequently the norm in pornographic films. The female porn actors interviewed are shown as human and genuinely sensual (unlike the way they are portrayed in porn films), although their comfortable attitude to sexuality threatens to bring out more of the guys' insecurities (a theme that was also explored well in Breillat's Sex is Comedy). The girls prove mostly adept at putting the young man at ease however and he selects the oldest of them (40yrs) to be his 'co-star'. Clark avoids the pitfall of making the film funny or sterile or missing the eventual sex scene. The result is a documentary about porn that is also seamlessly pornographic.

The sense of dislocation is felt even more strongly in House Call by Richard Prince (a twelve minute section). Almost an homage to a golden age of porn, Prince takes the naughty doctor-patient fantasy stereotype but reprocesses his film until the image quality is overrun with graininess and bad lighting. To this, he adds jangling, futuristic music so that, even though the images are very explicit, we are reduced to observing them in a distant, dispassionate way.

Hoist, the fifteen minute contribution by artist Matthew Barney, will be no surprise to fans of his acclaimed Cremaster Cycle. Barney develops cryptic, intricate symbols that draw you in to their artistry long before you decipher them, whether in Freudian or any other terms. He is a very visual artist and can be extremely unsettling, perhaps in the way Dali is. At the start of Hoist, we are not sure what we are looking at. It could be a slug. Very slowly it grows, like a painting that slowly changes. Gradually we become aware that it is in reality something very different to what we had expected. It is a human penis. The ultimate, dystopian contrast occurs in an onanistic union with a deforestation machine.

Balkan Erotic Epic by Marina Abramov is thirteen minutes of amusing but quite instructional scenes re-enacting ancient sexual rites for fertility, warding off evil and the like. It also provides some of the most memorable images, such as the bare-breasted woman repeatedly clutching a skull to her chest in the closing credits. One of the scenes - where men are seen from above, lying face down and copulating with the earth itself, is reminiscent of the work of the photographer Spencer Tunick who stages vast public gatherings of naked people around the world.

Sync by Marco Brambilla is the shortest contribution at less than 2 minutes. Brambilla uses sensory overload in the form of clips, each no more than a few frames in length, from typical hard core features. The resulting choreographed collage (set to loud drum music) is like being hit over the head with Dante-esquire force by images that once would have appeared sexual or arousing.

Death Valley by Sam Taylor-Wood is eight minutes long and puts a Marlboro man type character in one of the hottest infertile places in the world where he 'spills his seed'. Taylor-Wood's work often has the human figure isolated on film, as if she views the body in its most revealing moments as a work of art in itself. Death Valley conveys the loneliness and stigma attached to self-stimulation and is uncomfortable, almost homo-erotic viewing.

Gaspar Noé provides one of the longer segments with We F*ck Alone at 23 minutes. As with his earlier Irreversible, he uses strobes and a heartbeat-like thumping background score to create sensory disorientation. At one point a man puts a gun in sex-toy doll's mouth as he copulates with it. The scene maybe suggests the danger of sexual repression symbolised by solitary pleasure - if the psyche is unable to negotiate normal sexual relations with another person it tends towards force and a desire for dominance. The title is a play on the title of the director's first feature film, I Stand Alone (Seul Contre Tous), a controversial story about despair and loneliness and the resulting sexual pathology.

sold as art but be honest, it's hard core

[trashgang · 6/10 · 12 February 2015]

I came across this compilation due 2 directors that I knew and have in my collection. Larry Clark, controversial due using kids picked up from the street and let them do things normal kids won't do or are forbidden to do. His most famous flick is Kids (1995° made in the grunge heydays and Ken Park (2002) were a teenager goes down beneath the mother of his friend to give her some pleasures. A lot of viewers were shocked and the film was never released in the US.

The other director is Gasper Noé which I knew due made also some controversial flicks like Irréversible (2002) and Enter The Void (2009).

Both directors are always on the edge of explicit forbidden nudity (Clark with 18 year old girls going full frontal and Noé by showing a rape going on for minutes) but here in Destricted they go beyond that together with some other directors.

This compilation is called an art-erotic flick but all i can say is that some were indeed art, one short flick is just a fast editing, cut every second of porn flicks. you just don't see anything but it works. To be honest, it only clocks in over 2 minutes and it's worth seeing for the editing alone. But the rest isn't art at all. Maybe Noé's entry is a bit arty. But it's pure porn for minutes made with a strobo. But it's downhill with the art from here. For example Clarks entry clocks in at 39 minutes and it's just guys talking about porn. One guy is ready to talk with porn actresses and while talking to the girls they take of their clothes talking what they do best. But one of the girls wants to show the 22 year old one what it's all about so she seduces him and asks to undress. From their on the guy doesn't know what is going on, first she gives him a blow job, then he may go inside her and even goes in her brownie, then he may do what he wants to end with another blow job.

The worst entry is the Death Valley part, 9 minutes of jerking off and that's it, is that art?

The other entries except for the Balkan story are pure porn. The Balkan story is a bit funny to hear and see and isn't believable even as it is true what the girl is saying.

Overall pure porn here and there and a bit of art. Kleenex lovers will enjoy some parts but again people who thought like me to see an art compilation as promised will be shocked. Hard core it is.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 0/5 Comedy 0/5

Nasty fun.

[insomniac_rod · 7/10 · 19 September 2008]

Gaspar Noe and Mr. Prince are the highlights of this compilation of erotic thrillers. To be honest, I watched this entirely because of Mrs. Nancy Vee who is one of the most sexy, and erotic artists to ever grace the screen of soft core. She's just amazing and in this performance she demonstrates why.

This compilation suits with the adjectives: sexy, dirty, nasty, creative, and funny. So I would recommend it for those who are into indie films and semi exploitation with artistic intentions.

Sure, some of the segments are pretentious but take them for what this is: erotic fun with an edge.

Highly recommended for those like me who are into erotic features and plenty of sexual situations.

I Know It When I See It...

[Nodriesrespect · 8/10 · 29 March 2008]

The set-up for DESTRICTED was both simple and ingenuous, an idea whose time had come. Seven highly regarded visual artists, mostly hailing from the affiliated worlds of cinema and photography, were asked to shoot a short film with pornography as its subject and given total freedom as to their personal interpretation of this assignment. The results are diverse, to say the least, wildly varied in relevance as well as achievement though I would argue that none of the episodes is wholly without interest, this in marked contrast to what the generally lukewarm critical reception would seem to indicate. Being a longtime porno fan rather than a patron of the arts, I will be the first to admit that I might be out of my depth – just a smidgen – as I was relatively unfamiliar with work and background of most of the film's featured artists. Yet a variety of views keeps discussions lively and enlightening and, in that spirit, I would like to put in my two cents worth.

San Francisco's own Matthew Barney, revered and reviled for his gargantuan CREMASTER cycle – which doubled as exhibit installations as well as regular (well…) movies – and something of an upmarket tabloid darling for fathering a love child with Icelandic songstress Björk, shoves "Hoisted" down our collective throats first. An impressively endowed if crud-encrusted "Blooming Greenman" as the credits would have it, performed by Vicente Pinho Neto although several sources claim it's the director himself, makes love to and therefore gradually melds into a towering deforestation machine, with a turnip lodged halfway up his rectum ! Hey, it made me laugh. Unsure of what it's trying to say (if anything), this episode still exerts tremendous fascination out of sheer weirdness, its man merging into machinery theme reminiscent of David Cronenberg taken to visual extremes or Fred Halsted's classic gay short SEX GARAGE. Performance artist Marina Abramovic, daughter of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, injects a seriously whacked out yet admirably straight-faced sense of humor into her "Balkan Erotic Epic" relating a number of peculiar superstitions and sexual practices from the Old Country, illustrated through charmingly crude animation and live action. You haven't truly lived until you have seen the all female choir, encompassing all ages from nubile to pension, passionately rubbing their bare breasts in a plea for their crop's fertility !

Painter/photographer Richard Prince's "House Call" may seem like the most rudimentary installment, shooting a '70s hardcore loop (starring Mike Ranger and a large-breasted lady who looks a bit like Anita Sands from Joe Bardo's DEEP ROOTS but probably isn't, though credits identify the pair as "John Saint John" and "Kora Reed" respectively) off a TV screen with a self-composed organ soundtrack. In retrospect, this technique offers an incisive critique of porn viewing as a solitary (masturbatory ?) action, passive so by association not "responsible" for the visual "act", an excuse men have frequently resorted to in defense to their spouses ! The filming of the monitor removes us one step further still. Italian Marco Brambilla, who directed the okay Sly Stallone/Sandy Bullock sci fi flick DEMOLITION MAN but also the inexcusable Alicia Silverstone fiasco EXCESS BAGGAGE, edited together a huge pile of split second images from anonymous porno features as well as "risqué" mainstream fare such as Chen Kaige's ludicrous KILLING ME SOFTLY and Martin Scorsese's CAPE FEAR remake into a semi-continuous sexual encounter in "Sync", expressions of pleasure and pain – as can be spotted in a few blood-spattered frames – becoming indistinguishable. Sam Taylor-Wood's British and, although the name could go either way, a girl – if not, she would most definitely be a gay guy – as you will be able to tell from "Death Valley", showing a solitary man (Chris Raines) feverishly masturbating in the titular void. Male nudity seems to be prevalent in most episodes, perhaps going some way to explain the lack of enthusiasm in the straight male critic's response. Being queer myself, I take a "different" view, of course !

The contribution of Gaspar Noé, shock auteur of SEUL CONTRE TOUS and IRREVERSIBLE, apparently raised a lot of commentators' expectations to a level he would have trouble living up to, hence the general disappointment. Still, "We F*ck Alone" is a beautifully crafted, eerily strobe-lit juxtaposition of two lonely people separately watching a porn video starring Katsumi and Manu Ferrara. A baby's continuous wails in the background (reality intruding on porno fantasy) underscores a young woman's (Shirin Barthel) self-pleasuring session with a stuffed toy while a cute Goth guy (Richard Blondel) makes use of a gun and a blow up doll. Larry Clark, of KEN PARK infamy, comes up trumps with the misleadingly labeled "Impaled", interviewing a series of regular American boys on their relationship to nowadays readily available explicit imagery, having literally grown up with porn, in a selection process to actually perform with a real adult actress. The remarkably level-headed Daniel ultimately makes the grade and gets to pick a partner from a line-up including the likes of August, Angela Stone and Sativa Rose before settling on nervous, self-deprecating Nancy Vee, star of Kris Kramski's amazing MODELS. At the ripe old age of 40 (reflecting current society's twisted set of values), Vee's pathetically insecure and grateful for the opportunity, remarking how most guys would gladly trade her in for a couple of 20 year-olds ! Clark records yet never judges, treating his physically and emotionally naked subjects with dignity and compassion, ironically resulting in a featurette – at nearly half an hour, it's the most elaborate of the bunch – that's nowhere near as sleazy as some of his full length films like KIDS or BULLY. It may, in fact, be his best work to date as a semi-documentary filmmaker and certainly the most riveting part of this rarely less than intriguing grab bag.

Doesn't matter, If GASPAR NOE is involved I'M IN.

[tkaine3 · 8/10 · 7 July 2023]

Well it's not Hardcore but it's definitely above unsimulated sex, Unsimilated Porn I confess but somewhere between these scenes of gyrating full breasts ass naked men pink furry beavers and dangling dongs I feel like a porn paradox is on the cusp of revealing itself. I know it's porn imitating art but who am I to say what beauty is truth and what's just an indulgence. Maybe all the scenes of people not having sex is the farce. The line between purity and perversion is so blurred like the intermission short towards the end showing the hundreds of different people in different sexual positions is really all we boil down too in the end..