The return of the sex cinema: Erotic Paradiso review
- Vilde Kristine Malmo
- Feb 21, 2017
- 3 min read
The speakers sputter out female moans and grunts with 90s electronic background music, followed by vagina-close-ups and bouncing tits all over the screen. I am at the intimate and sterile, “Erotic Paradiso” pop-up cinema, situated at the Ditto Gallery in Islington, ready to explore the grittier side of London. I am relieved that my preconceptions of an excessively horny audience dressed in leather macs with nothing beneath, only there to have a discrete, communal wank at the back rows, are completely wrong. Forget about vulgar films from Pornhub or the steamy scenes in the newest ‘50 Shades of Grey’ film, this cinema offers a different experience by supposedly presenting “high-brow” sex.
Erotic Paradiso is the brainchild of the erotic magazine, Baron & Baroness, and is set up in collaboration with the Ditto Gallery. It includes a series of 12 short films made by artists and photographers exploring sex without the seedy connotations. The cinema includes classics such as “Angel” by Sara baker, “Tokyo Midnight” by Eori Wakakuwa and “Two Cocks” by Monique Broring. The pop-up is confronting the question of what is pornographic and what is artistic, a debate which has been ongoing since the 1970s.
"Forget about vulgar scenes from PornHub"
Matthew Holroyd wants to challenge people’s perception of sex on film. Unfortunately, Erotic Paradiso is not much of a Paradiso, and the sex is painfully dull. A caveman-looking man wearing only a big, furry coat, with his phallus happily wobbling from side to side, whilst he aggressively hammers on a massive rock can hardly be associated with the promised offer of “high-brow” sex. The scene lasts for five anti-climatic, dreadful minutes. The lack of excitement is a recurring disappointment in all of the short films.
Arbitrary scenes, incoherent monologues and poorly shot pictures make it difficult to grasp the essence of the selection of films. The few others who had also opted for sex cinema on a Saturday mirrored my confusion. Restlessly browsing on Facebook and frantically sipping vodka, they seemed to be reconsidering their idea.
Eloise Parry’s cross dressing thriller “My Little Cup Cake”, screening a bold, middle-aged man draped in pearl necklaces, wearing sexy womens’ underwear and high heels, spanking himself and screaming in excitement “ I’m so sexy. I want to fuck myself really hard” had the potential – albeit comic potential – to make people laugh, but by this point the majority of the audience was already half asleep.
It’s hard to see how My Little Cupcake, or any of the other shorts for that matter, coincides with how the cinema is advertised; “the sexiest show you have ever seen.” The only highlight of the cinema is the Baroness’s debut erotic pop video “Xstasy” by artist Emma Gruner and electronic musician Viva Victorua. In contrast to the other shorts, it contains some sort of depth and meaning. The series of hyper-sexualised shots of Gruner herself is meant to challenge the representation of women in male-oriented pornography. With her seductive gestures, Gruner successfully confronts the fact that hyper-sexualisation is becoming increasingly normalised.
For six minutes, one gets the pleasure of watching someone’s bare, overweight ass sitting still on a desk.They say art is in the eye of the beholder, and the Erotic Paradiso certainly offers an alternative to mainstream film sex. However, by failing to offer any kind of social commentary or deliver anything remotely sexy, Erotic Paradiso is seemingly the result of some artistic souls composing something random labelled as an erotic sex screening. Do yourself a favour, don’t waste your ten pounds on this.
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