Seven artists and directors were requested to make a short film on sex and pornography for this compilation feature. The first, from Marina Abramovic, is about the history of sex in the Balkans and uses a mixture of animation and live action, mostly actors in traditional costume, of men and women exposing themselves intercut with a lecture on what we're seeing, and sometimes what we're not seeing. Whether any of it is true or not is highly questionable, but at least seems light hearted. This, however, sets the tone, as all the films are carried out at a certain distance from their subjects, as if to rely on the art side of things to justify the porn aspect.
The second, by Matthew Barney of the Cremaster films, features a man getting amorous with an enormous truck at pitiless length; after the first segment you might think at least you'll be getting a laugh out of these, but this part, apparently illustrating how much men love their machinery (although surely not that much?) unveils the overall feeling that the whole will elicit: boredom. After the lightning fast edit of various porno clips directed by Marco Brambilla, yes, the Demolition Man director, a lighter mood looks to be implemented, but this is over so fast it barely registers.
Then arrives the longest segment, which is Larry Clark and his favourite subject, the sexual habits of young people. This consists of interviews with a collection of young men where the director asks them intrusive questions about their sex lives (Larry Clark intrusive?! I know it's hard to believe), and even gets them to take their clothes off. All this is because there is a prize at the end of the short, and that's for the winner to enjoy themselves with a genuine porn star. As a preamble to this, the lucky chap gets to interview a number of such actresses, all leading up to what amounts to a porn video, complete with the nuts and bolts of such an event to dampen any viewer's ardour, especially as the actress in question seems to be insane.
After that, it's a man renowned for his sense of humour, Irreversible director Gaspar Noé, who gets his effort off to a flying start when it says that this bit includes strobing and may be harmful to those with epilepsy. Wa-hey! What it consists of is an examination of how, in the words of its sensitive title, "We Fuck Alone", so basically it's a man masturbating with a blow up doll and a woman masturbating with a big teddy bear. Any higher purpose here is trampled by that feeling again, yes, you won't have shaken off that boredom from the previous works. Richard Prince follows on with a indistinctly shot tribute to seventies porn, and the whole shebang ends with, appropriately, an anti-climax when Sam Taylor-Wood offers a man pleasuring himself in Death Valley - and that's all. If Destricted proves anything, it's that there is a difference between art and pornography, and neither emerge with any dignity from this.
