The Day of the Documentaries

TABUBRUCH by Gerhard Stahl
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0994964/

Four really long/detailed interviews with couples who enjoy s&m as part of their sex-life.
The interviewer is really interested, he gives them time to talk and play.
The couples find the right words for their feelings and dare to be open because they know they can trust the filmmaker and the audience. An insight, very intimate, very good.


BDSM IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK
http://bdsmdocumentary.blogspot.com/
Interviews with activists of the San Francisco-BDSM-subculture.
They have a professional way to talk and they are typical for a decisive american way of presentation.
They know what they are talking about and they really have to express/say something.
- Internet/Pornography is there/used to entertain, not to educate (more information/education is needed)
- our language has not enough words to express certain situations/feeling ("fun-pain")
- the strange feelings of people of colour in BDSM (there always were) in contrast/history of colialism/real slavery.
- the healing aspect of bdsm
- wrestling is socially accepted, whipping each other not; an accident during a consensual sm-play seems to show how dangerous bdsm is - but a broken leg during football-traing doesn't lead to a discussion to forbid football
- safewords (slow down or stop or faster) are not only for the bottom but also for the top
The activists are very selfconfident and sometimes you may get the impression everybody should try sm;
but I think it's not a good agenda to have symbols of power and games involving 'violence' in every bedroom - only those who feel and daydream in that way should have their way and community as an accepted/tolerated part of the general socitey.


SUSAN FOR NOW
http://www.myspace.com/susanfornow

This film is an authentic portrait of the Seattle scene and – in parts – of the director. A personal film. The audience gets to know something of Robin's life and it was good to see her at the end of the film, as a part of the community.
It was surprising to see interview-partners hiding their faces. In other documentaries people have the courage to show themselves, to come out. In this film some people, not all, but some cover their identity. I can understand that and especially for the priest. These scenes with masks or talking shadows are a visual accusation of a society that still gives disadvantages to those who express how they feel or how they are.
Medical play is a special fetish and in parts not so easy to watch. When the people involved talk about their session it get’s more comfortable for the viewer (sessions are not intended to be good for voyeurs, sessions are no show-acts, they are just fort he two people involved – but if you see this documentary as a viewer you have an opinion and tell how you feel watching the scene). Some parts of the film seem to be edgy and so s&m keeps it’s rough and dangerous power in opposition to clean consumable fashionable mainstream-fetish-stuff. People are shown as they ae. They don’t have the model-look, they are just as they are, people from the neighbourhood, like you and me. It’s the beauty of everybody. It’s the beauty of people who open their soul. One guest oft he festival said, that it wasn’t done professionally, his example was, that someone looked into the camera. I didn’t get that. Even if that was the case (which would in no way be representative for the film) that isn’t disturbing as long as something real is expressed and it would underline the aspect of authenticity. The same man stated that he couldn’t see the aim of this film? He said this could go on and on, where is the conclusion? Someone else said that it was interesting to see how embarrassed the conservative christian people react in the US and he was glad that we have a more liberal situation in Europe. Meanwhile we here we have the impression that bdsm has no provocative potential and no one cares.
Interesting the difference made for SSC and RACK. SSC means Safe Sane Consensual while more open RACK stands for Risk Aware Consensual Kink. A woman says that under legal aspects it may be a disadvantage to use the term RACK because you admit that you knew there was a risk but you still did it. SSC is a more positive and more introduced term. She said if you are honest nothing in bdsm is totally safe, it’s also not totally sane; but consensual is the word!