Antiporno (2016) dir. Sion Sono
First off, I’d like to take a minute to talk about how beautiful Antiporno looks. Sono confines most of the action to a single apartment, with walls painted in various vivid colours, giant pop-art paintings leaning on the wall, and numerous rotating fans that shed light into the interiors. All of this coupled with occasional bubbles, lights of many candles, and naked female bodies (being accused of male gaze in 3… 2… 1…) creates some incredible eye-candy moments. The acting is very good and convincing, too. Especially, from, the newcomer Ami Tomite (it’s her first movie both in real life and in the film, so meta!)
EDIT: it is actually not her first in real life, meta = broken. I also could swear one of the guest girls was Asami. Now that I have of all this behind me, let’s get to the rant analysis.
SPOILERS
Sion Sono’s Antiporno is not a porn film, but, just like love is close to hate, antiporn is close to porn. The film talks about many things, including art, and show business, how hard it is to get there, as a porn star, as a novelist, as an actress. Average porn star’s career is very short, only the best girls get famous, but at what expense? It’s not only pornstars, though. Especially in Japan, but pretty much in the entire world as well, the show business is extremely competitive. Not only the best and most talented prevail, but above all, these with strongest minds. Suicidal tendencies are common, for instance, Yukiko Okada’s successful and Jun Togawa’s unsuccessful suicide attempts. The world of show business, the world of porn, the world of adults, the world itself is unrelenting. Life sucks, to put it bluntly.
The protagonist of the film, Kyoko, gets to experience this. At the beginning of the film she’s a stereotypical, over-the-top, narcissistic megalomaniac. A star on the verge of madness suffering from bulimia. She treats her manager, Noriko, like a dog. Kyoko is a dom, whereas Noriko is a sub. In a shocking scene, the domina humiliates Noriko in the least titillating way possible. She orders her to cut her wrist only to remark her blood is dirty and of no further use. However, this state of affairs does not last long, as in a surprising twist the roles change. Now the former domina becomes a sub, is humiliated by her former slave, who turns out to be a more experienced person ‘in the business’. Is the beginning of the film a mad dream? The character of Kyoko’s sister may indicate that it is. Is it just a movie within a movie? The abrupt cut from the action that shows the film crew seems to suggest so.
Kyoko’s backstory is a pretty typical ‘how I got here’ kind of a thing, with repressed sexuality, loss of mother and sister, that inflicted deep trauma, and perhaps, mental illness. For Kyoko sex is a form of rebellion, virginity a form of slavery. Just like many girls, she lies her way into porn industry. This reminded me of Reiko Ike, who lied about her age, too. It was pinku eiga, not porn in her case, though. Sex as form of rebellion and expression is stupid. A decision she will most likely regret. Well, she already regrets it when she finds out there is no sister in the apartment. It may be too late as she is already being flogged by the domina – the dream of being famous, being a star, even if porn star is but a dream and reality is much harsher. Young girls are used, exploited, molested. Just like alleged molestation of members of AKB48 group. The paint sequence at the end of the film is reminiscent of BIS ‘anti-idol’ group music videos.
The film seems to try to say something about feminism, too. The only two men in the film, Kyoko’s father, who on one hand, along with her mother, says sex is filthy and dirty, but on the other, has sex every night, is portrayed as a hypersexual. The other man in the film, a young boy, agrees to deflower the protagonist and starts doing it in a rapey style (this changes after a while, as she teaches him to be gentle?!). There is also the director who tries to elicit a natural orgasm imitation by dry-humping her behind the stage. All men in the film = sex. At the end of the film there is a short tirade about men being ‘bad’ and root of all evil, as well. Now, taken objectively, this would be a pretty narrow-minded view in such an otherwise smart film. But it is only so, if taken as a) director’s manifesto against men (and not just immoral world of porn) that I sincerely believe is not the case, and b) OBJECTIVE filmmaking, which I don’t think adheres to Sono neither. Now, you can take it as SUBJECTIVE, a product of Kyoko’s mind. She sees men like that, because that’s all she knows of them. But then again, women she knows aren’t any better either. The ending made me realize yet another thing. The film is also about free speech. Sono has free speech in this film and seems to mock the viewer, introducing the grand finale, in which big puddles of multi-colored paint cover Kyoko and the white floor she’s on. Just like Chytilova in Daisies, he seems to summarize: “This film is dedicated to those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce”, only in this case it’s paint, Jodorowsky Fando y Lis style!
END OF SPOILERS
Of course, Sono is far from subtle and criticism of his metaphors and symbolism being heavy-handed is a fair one, but it is still his best film after Love Exposure. The best movie of 2016. Ex aequo with The Son of Joseph.
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