Do they just watch? Or do they also play a little? To defuse what they see, and what we as viewers only hear? When the camera focuses on their faces while they watch a sex scene they once performed, some well-known Dutch actors in this documentary by Tamar van den Dop each go through their own feelings: embarrassment, satisfaction, emotion, fun or sadness.
“I just don’t really understand why this has to be on screen for so long,” says Nora El Koussour, for example, upset when she sees a scene of herself in Can I touch you? (73 mins). She finds the scene confrontational, even humiliating. ‘It has started to seep into my own life. After that, the respect just disappears for me.’ After the recording she received a bouquet of flowers, her opponent was left empty-handed.
In any case, it remains fascinating: looking at looking – and at the same time not seeing what they see. For example, the young actors Joes Brauers and Lina Heijmans first read aloud the script of what is to be ‘a turbulent lovemaking’ and then separately view the resulting scene. It is an intimate spectacle, even for those who are not directly involved and cannot even observe it themselves.
In this interview film, Van den Dop, who is also active as an actress, director and screenwriter, further questions colleagues such as Monic Hendrickx, Gijs Naber, Hannah Hoekstra, Jeroen Spitzenberger and Georgina Verbaan, while they are pinned to a transmitter microphone or powdered on the film set. About the do’s and don’ts of sex scenes – and thus also the change(s) in sexual morality.
‘Just do it (just do it)’, they were regularly told by film directors. And also: ‘could it be a little hotter?’ They were usually not allowed – and did not want to/dared/could – to make things too difficult. And Van den Dop continues to ask: is it sometimes just nice? Do you sometimes get excited? How do you tell your family that you are going to play a gay role? Can your children see this scene? And: are you actually on porn sites? And what do you think about that?
When it comes to sex, times have changed considerably, especially since #metoo. ‘I started to look more critically: is it necessary?’ says Rifka Lodeizen, who was regularly seen functionally naked, for example to her make-up artist, who has already been told by Waldemar Torenstra that he sometimes has contracts specify that he no longer takes off his clothes. Nowadays some films also have an intimacy coordinator.
As children of the freedom-joy of the sixties and seventies, the veterans Peter Faber and Jeroen Krabbé have little regard for such developments, which can be categorized under the heading ‘new prudishness’. “It’s as if Queen Victoria is back again,” sighs Krabbé. At the same time, after some further questioning, it turns out that he had also had some bad experiences during filming in the past.
On the other hand: perhaps the current reluctance also means that sexuality is now left to advertising and porn? And what does that mean again? Like this waedt Can I touch you? brave and delicate, without for a moment becoming navel-gazing, through the swamp surrounding sexuality on screen. And if appearances are not deceiving, this will no longer be as obvious as in the past.
How it should or should be done remains a matter of interpretation and feeling. Just like in real life.
2023-10-08 12:42:46
#watch #documentaries #2Doc.nl #October
