What does an adult film star look at when acting? Our critique of “Pleasure”, available on Mubi

From Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” to David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”, there have been many films that have portrayed the drama of women in search of (re) achieving the American dream in Hollywood, even if it ends up becoming a fierce nightmare . Ninja Thyberg’s “Pleasure” has some of that, only focused on the porn industry, as it tells the story of the young Linnéa (Sofia Kappel), who decides to abandon her life in Sweden to pursue adult film stardom. in Los Angeles, under the pseudonym Bella Cherry.

From the outset, it must be said that the film – which premiered at the Sundance Festival last year – is provocative and shocking because it does not shy away from the explicit scenes that can be inferred from its plot. In fact, Kappel’s corporal and gestural delivery is intense and convincing, although the sexual passages of “Pleasure” – far from fueling lust or desire – are rather uncomfortable, sometimes even grotesque. In search of those sensations, It is interesting how Thyberg uses the resource of the POV (point of view), to reverse it and give it to the leading actress: what does a porn star look at when she performs? To which unpleasant details should you direct (or avert) your gaze?

But beyond those sordid moments, perhaps the most disturbing thing about the film lies in its portrayal of a perverse, abusive and even savage industry. A usually cynical world that in most cases unscrupulously markets young people who, like the protagonist Bella Cherry, must overcome their vulnerability and insecurities in an effort to continue climbing a career that is not too long, in which sooner rather than later the bodies themselves become obsolete and disposable.

If “Pleasure” does something particularly well, it is that its critical gaze it is not sobering, moralistic or even less. He prefers to show, expose, and under that position he even chooses to recruit real characters from the pornographic circle in his cast, which gives him an unusual quasi-documentary vein. Even so, it is especially Kappel who embodies in a remarkable way the prototypical prey of the monsters that inhabit this machinery of morbidity and exploitation.

QUALIFICATION

3 STARS OUT OF 5

“PLEASURE”

Genre: drama.

Country and year: Sweden, 2021.

Director: Ninja Thyberg.

Cast: Sofia Kappel, Revika Anne Reustle, Evelyn Claire.

Where to watch it: On MUBI.