Escape From Bondage, Continued

I was reading some discussion about the movie Avatar today apart from all the sour grapes about the weaknesses of the film (which are far outweighed by the strengths of the production)  one comment stood out. It pointed out that the movie takes the viewer out of reality and for a couple of hours places them in the allegory of our world that is Pandora. The films metaphor is simple and unmistakeable so it’s not going to win too many gongs at the awards. There is a linear plot and a satisfying conclusion that’s unlikely to be mirrored in the real world but while you’re watching it you want to be part of the alien environment. The 3D is only part of this, it’s the concept of the place that’s compelling.

All good cinema is like this. It doesn’t have to change the way society thinks to be great entertainment. It doesn’t have to be believable outside the movie theatre. It just has to engage you in a way that stops you thinking about the shit in the real world from the moment the lights go down to the moment they come back up again.

It applies to porn too, though porn directors and producers seem to make one terribly flawed assumption. The urge to watch porn does not mean that you totally switch your brain off. What you see on the screen can be as weird, fetish and “specialist” as you like but the effect must not be interrupted by some of the incongruities that seem to pepper certain streams of pornography.

I’m not talking about cheap porn being bad porn and high production value pornography being great. Where some movies fall down is the sort of jarring moments where the viewer is made acutely aware that the whole scene is being filmed by a crowd of people or that the progression of the scene skipped several minutes of action or was edited together to cover up a problem.

This sort of thing can happen in any movie from the cheapest amateur video to the largest big budget studio porn picture. In fact it’s more forgivable and less noticeable at the amateur end of the market and makes them seem all the more real.

I do wish studios would think about things like this so we can all, just for a few minutes escape from the bondage of the real world and immerse ourselves fully in the freedom of pornography. Even if it’s bondage porn. LOL