QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM BERLIN

Ageing porn star Dylan (Andrew Howard) shoots blue videos from his home in a British seaside town with the help of his 17-year-old son Alec (Caolán O’Gorman). The material is packed with unsimulated sex scenes, D’Ansembourg employs pornography as a prime metaphor in order to explore the present-day malaises of the West. An intoxicating influx of digital images has replaced human intimacy.

With the mother passed away years ago, theirs appears to be a harmonious co-existence. Yet domesticity is not the name of the game here. Living rooms are used as film studios, porn actors come and go. They shoot round the clock (innuendo intended). Career-obsessed Dylan desperately creates content in order to make money, expecting his son to be cameraman, personal assistant and caregiver. Alec appears to have stepped up to the task.

The young man has learnt to compartmentalise his two different lives. He separates his home/work from school. There could be long-term effects to being raised in such as environment, and the telltale signs are all there. He is deeply introverted, perhaps out of fear that he could expose his father. One day he’s assigned a school project with fellow student Nina (Safiya Benaddi). Nina smells something fishy, yet that doesn’t prevent their romance from blossoming. Her hunch proves correct, which explains her boyfriend’s strange behaviour. The fiercely independent Nina offers Alec a new perspective, the possibility of a life outside his father’s porn bubble.

Porn scenes are brightly lit, highly stylised, bold and garish. Everything becomes dreary after the professional lights go off. Dylan’s world is extremely superficial, yet it’s one he refuses to give up. Films such as Ninja Thyberg’s Pleasure (2021) or Catherine Brilliat’s Romance (1999) have a similar premise,. The protagonist forsakes social propriety, suppresses innate emotions and avoid paternal accountability in the blinkered pursuit of enjoyment, money and fame.

Muriel d’Ansembourg puts her stellar cast through the wringer. Viewers are treated to countless oddities, in a movie highly critical of the pornographic industry. “Highlights” include a threesome with an octopus, and a smoking anus. This frenzied ride through sex hell and not for the faint-hearted. This is a movie underpinned by an investigation into intimacy and connection. Porn offers fleeting satisfaction, however that pales in comparison to real connection.

Truly Naked just premiered in the Perspectives section of the 76th Berlinale