Outfest – Crazy Kinky Cool

By starrymag | July 20, 2018

By: Taylor Gates

 

 

Outfest’s “Crazy Kinky Cool” short program delivered exactly what the name promised…and then some. The collection of six shorts focused on women discovering and owning their sexual desires, whatever those desires may entail. Though they all contained this same theme, they took place in very different environments with very different characters, reinforcing the fact that what’s on the outside doesn’t always necessarily reflect what’s on the inside and that females can be strong as hell in many different ways.

 

Warning: The following paragraphs contain descriptions of sexually explicit material.

 

Dragonfire

 

Directed by Michelle Ehlen and starring singer-songwriter Jennifer Corday, Dragonfire is one hot music video…literally. Though the video lasts a mere four minutes, the mixture of sound and cinematography manages to get your pulse racing.

 

Corday stars as the main figure, playing her various guitars while a leather-clad dominatrix juggles fire and performs magic-like tricks with a burning whip across Corday’s skin. The fire prop is used in a sexy exciting way, putting a less-talked-about part of BDSM culture front and center and assuring audiences that it can be fun and playful.

 

The video plays with color, Corday wearing a pink sequined top and the dominatrix donning dark lipstick. The only real source of light in the all-black background is the bold light from the flames, creating striking and erotic mood lighting.

 

Cake

 

Cake takes a comedic approach in its exploration of the role kink can play in relationships, particularly relationships in which one character is seemingly more adventurous than the other. Hoping to spice up her marriage and explore her sexuality, Eliza (Daniella Rabbani) orders female sex robot Jade Oh (Anne Hu, who also wrote and directed the film) for her and her husband Thomas (Tom Lacey), who is initially hesitant to give the new toy a try.

 

Eliza and Thomas’ marriage feels incredibly authentic thanks to both the chemistry between Rabbani and Lacey and Hu’s rapid-fire, quirky dialogue similar to that of Amy Sherman-Palladino (“Gilmore Girls”). Though the concept sounds a little out there, viewers barely have to do anything to suspend disbelief, as the actors make this feel completely within the realm of possibility.

 

The set design matches this surreal but grounded tone. Eliza and Thomas’ home is decorated with sexually explicit art—clay sculptures of vaginas with teeth and enormous paintings of penises adorn their shelves and walls.

 

The short is filled with laughs, but it’s not without substance. Eliza, for instance, has the desire to explore her sexuality and is trying to find a way to do that without going outside of her marriage. This creates a disconnect between her and Thomas, who didn’t even know Eliza was longing for more.

 

Though Rabbani and Thomas are superb, it’s Hu that manages to steal the show without ever saying a word. Her bored reactions when Eliza and Thomas bicker extensively, her offended expression when they make off-color remarks about her being Asian and when she goes to charge herself when she’s bored of their antics are hysterical beats.

 

Dressed for Pleasure (Je Fais Où Tu Me Dis) [French with English subtitles]

 

Written and directed by Marie de Maricourt, Dressed for Pleasure is a true standout among all of the shorts screening at Outfest this year. Twenty-something Sarah (Angélique Bridoux) is a disabled girl who lives with her parents and dreams of breaking free from her mundane, bland everyday life. Fed up with abuse from her customers because she is transgender, cam girl Victoria (Naëlle Dariya) is hired by Sarah’s mother (Nathalie Cuenet) and father (Vincent Chaumont) to take care of the house and keep an eye on Sarah.

 

One thing that makes this story particularly powerful is that Sarah and Victoria never see themselves as victims and nor do they want anyone’s pity. They are the most confident and driven characters in the film, knowing exactly what they want and not being afraid to let everyone else know. When her parents drag her to speed dating, for instance, Sarah unabashedly tells her suitors she’s into spanking. When a man watching Victoria calls her disgusting, she reminds him he’s literally on a porn site specifically for transgender people.

 

This self-assurance is in stark contrast to Sarah’s parents, who are both clearly longing for something more but don’t have the courage or ability to communicate. Sarah and Victoria, on the other hand, form an unlikely friendship with Victoria inviting her group of lovable misfits for an epic party at Sarah’s house to help break her out of her shell. After Sarah’s parents return home and open the door to see Sarah perched on a dominatrix throne, surrounded by submissive men dressed as dogs, the film goes into gorgeously-shot fantasy sequence of them prancing naked through the woods. Ending on a sudden dip into fantasy calls to mind the technique appropriated by the award-winning movie Florida Project.

 

Using humor, spunk and brazen joy, Maricourt delivers one of the most progressive and natural-feeling projects of the festival. Those who identify as trans or have disabilities have historically not been given much of a voice or representation even within the LGBTQ+ community. The fact that a piece as stunning and original as this still manages to be relatable is a testament to the universality of emotions and untapped potential within their stories.

 

Girl Talk

 

Mia (Hannah Hodson) is bold and confident on the outside but still secretly suffering from her breakup with Elle (Erica Pappas), which we see in flashbacks. She has girls flocking to her, sending her texts asking her to meet up, but Mia isn’t interested in an actual relationship with any of them.

 

Mia heads to a party with her friends and is immediately drawn to the more reserved Kate (Kea Trevett), who already has a girlfriend she’s madly in love with named Soliel (Alia Guidry). Though there’s tension between Mia and Soliel, the three of them head back to Mia’s house to get a drink. The big twist comes when Soliel tells Mia to have sex with Kate so that she can watch during a game of truth or dare. Mia obliges and in the middle of which she figures out that Kate has never climaxed before and thinks something is wrong with her. After Mia serves her purpose, she is discarded while the other two makeout.

 

Mia’s glimpses of heartbreak and vulnerability are subtle but obvious thanks to Hodson’s strong acting. Unfortunately, one can’t help but wish she was given a little more to do. The plot is a bit too thin to stretch the full seventeen-minute runtime and with a little more background of Mia outside of her breakups it could have been a riveting character study.

 

Still, the film (by director Erica Rose) feels like an accurate portrayal of someone who pretends they have it all together but is floundering right under the surface. The cinematography done by Daisy Zhou is sleek and modern—powerful reds, deep blues and strings of small bulbs are prevalent. From the club to the bedroom it feels very true to the “young adult in the big city” narrative, one that many young queer women will be able to see themselves in.

 

 

Library Hours

 

The concept of Library Hours is a strange one—recent widow Camille (Cam Damage) begins writing letters to her dead husband’s first wife Delphine (Melissa Vento). Over time, the two women fall in love and participate in some bondage. The material in the hands of a lesser writer or director could have been exploitive, sexually gratuitous and even insensitive, but under Jim Vendiola the short is anything but.

 

Camille and Delphine spend the first half of the film in their respective locations, talking nonstop via letters, but when they reunite and become physically intimate the dialogue stops completely in favor of instrumental music. The writing within the letters is very formal, prim and proper, giving the film a historical and luxurious tone.

 

The backdrop of the old gothic library—filled with tattered books, a velvet couch and rich, dark colors—contributes to this classical feel. The whole thing is incredibly visually romantic and artistic; the chemistry between the leads is palpable at every moment.

 

Watching Library Hours feels like sipping a glass of red wine in London, enjoying an espresso while reading The Paris Review or discussing Faulkner while smoking a fancy cigar. It radiates extravagance, indulgence and pleasure at every turn to be an irresistible treat of a film.

 

The Toilet Line

 

I won’t lie, I was not expecting a short film as graphic as The Toilet Line. A piece of queer porn from Goodyn Green, The Toilet Line has a simple plot: two women lock eyes in line waiting for the bathroom, decide to go in together and the rest is history.

 

There’s nothing quiet about this film. They have messy sex, the two of them crammed into the stall. Kudos to the makeup artists who worked on this shoot as they made the leads look real—their faces have blemishes, their hair doesn’t stay perfectly in place the whole time, they have pubic hair—but they are attracted to each other, imperfections and all, which is beautiful to see.

 

After they’re done being intimate, the two casually redress and make small talk, played to comic effect. They’ve just had ten minutes of rough sex, yet they don’t figure out each other’s names until after. They joke that perhaps they’ll meet up again later.

 

I’m not sure I would choose to watch The Toilet Line in a theatre full of strangers again, so I suggest watching at home in the comfort of your own home. However, the fact that the porn industry is moving away from being completely shot from and for the male gaze is definitely reason to celebrate the movement and the movie.