Movies from the perspective of a woman are rare enough. But movies made by women about porn, especially fiction, that’s about as rare as it gets. “Pleasure” follows the 19-year-old Linnea from Sweden who wants to make her way to the top as ‘Bella Cherry’ in the porn industry in America. Again, this is no documentary and it’s also no ‘this-is-the-dark-side-of-porn’-movie, although it contains some scenes that might be hard to watch, especially for a woman. While following Linnea we will be part of her challenges and opportunities, along with friendships and betrayal, dominance and submission, lust and disgust. Bella is smart, confident and almost frightening in her calculation to make her way into one of the hardest industries in the world. She is hyper-aware of what could sell on social media, taking photos before wiping the sperm off her face after her first shoot of a blowjob.
However, while Bella seems to be cool and calculating in some moments, the movie does not cut short on emotions either. We are witnesses to her struggle right before her first shoot, her happiness with newfound friends and pride after jobs well done, her jealousy of other – more famous – actresses, her frustration when she does not get as many jobs as she wants to and her rise to fame seems to stagnate, and her anger and panic. The longer we watch Bella’s story the more invested we become in her fate but also the more ambivalent we become towards her. She is a human after all, not all her decisions are wise, and Thyberg did an amazing job in making the audience want to scream at Bella in one moment, and hug her until she is feeling safe in the next. The focus of this movie does not lie on specific sexual acts and more on what happens around it, how situations come about and how energy and emotions flow and change between people. You see unglamorous clean-up scenes and glamorous parties talk about safe-words and rape allegations, and the rise and fall of friendships in little, but not too little, words.
Pleasure is not just a movie about women, it’s a movie made (almost exclusively) by women. For a change, there is a bit more male than female nudity and as a woman – I can only speak for myself here – one feels weirdly understood and taken seriously – even if you have never even been close to porn and its industry – it is a bit like your friend telling you a story. By following Bella’s story we realize that it’s not so much about the industry, but about the people in it. “It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, you have bad days at work”.
Directed by: Ninja Thyberg
Movies from the perspective of a woman are rare enough. But movies made by women about porn, especially fiction, that’s about as rare as it gets. “Pleasure” follows the 19-year-old Linnea from Sweden who wants to make her way to the top as ‘Bella Cherry’ in the porn industry in America. Again, this is no documentary and it’s also no ‘this-is-the-dark-side-of-porn’-movie, although it contains some scenes that might be hard to watch, especially for a woman. While following Linnea we will be part of her challenges and opportunities, along with friendships and betrayal, dominance and submission, lust and disgust. Bella is smart, confident and almost frightening in her calculation to make her way into one of the hardest industries in the world. She is hyper-aware of what could sell on social media, taking photos before wiping the sperm off her face after her first shoot of a blowjob.
However, while Bella seems to be cool and calculating in some moments, the movie does not cut short on emotions either. We are witnesses to her struggle right before her first shoot, her happiness with newfound friends and pride after jobs well done, her jealousy of other – more famous – actresses, her frustration when she does not get as many jobs as she wants to and her rise to fame seems to stagnate, and her anger and panic. The longer we watch Bella’s story the more invested we become in her fate but also the more ambivalent we become towards her. She is a human after all, not all her decisions are wise, and Thyberg did an amazing job in making the audience want to scream at Bella in one moment, and hug her until she is feeling safe in the next. The focus of this movie does not lie on specific sexual acts and more on what happens around it, how situations come about and how energy and emotions flow and change between people. You see unglamorous clean-up scenes and glamorous parties talk about safe-words and rape allegations, and the rise and fall of friendships in little, but not too little, words.
Pleasure is not just a movie about women, it’s a movie made (almost exclusively) by women. For a change, there is a bit more male than female nudity and as a woman – I can only speak for myself here – one feels weirdly understood and taken seriously – even if you have never even been close to porn and its industry – it is a bit like your friend telling you a story. By following Bella’s story we realize that it’s not so much about the industry, but about the people in it. “It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, you have bad days at work”.
Directed by: Ninja Thyberg
