There are many films about porn, but Ninja Thyberg’s fictional short Pleasure is different. Starring Jenny Hutton, it’s an explicit look behind-the-scenes of a porn shoot, particularly at the non-sexual and clinical preparatory routine before some extremely physically-challenging maneuvers.
The film plays at Sundance Film Festival later this week, in the Shorts Competition. It has already won the Critics’ Week award at Cannes. See it above. NSF[your]W.
There are some charming, sentimental interactions between performers introducing minor sentimental drama, competitive workplace intrigue and gender politics, all the subtleties exaggerated by the off camera sound-effects of another porn actress getting gang banged.
And then, there’s the core of the film: A discussion about the risks and merits of double anal, conducted in a way athletes discuss football tackle technique or record-breaking bench-pressing, detailed in its commercial and anatomical implications. Almost: “Pretend you’re giving birth to a baby. But the other way. And through the ass.”
Director Ninja Thyberg is still in film school in Stockholm, but recieved an education in film studies, sociology, and philosophy at the University of Gothenburg and in gender studies at the University of Lund.
“I’ve been interested in porn as a topic for a long time,” Thyberg told DAZED. “As a 16-year-old I was an angry anti-porn activist. Later I made porn myself, but independent feminist porn. With Pleasure, I wanted to portray the living people behind the porn stereotypes. I also wanted to examine social structures and mechanisms that extend far beyond the porn world.”
A continuation of Pleasure, Thyberg is working on the feature film Hot Chicks about “a Swedish girl becoming a porn star in LA.”
