“Sex is back at the movies,” claimed the New York Times Magazine in December 2023. Raunchy themes and sexually charged movies at the 81st Venice Film Festival seem to confirm just that. “Yes, one of the recurring themes is the return of eroticism,” commented Festival Director Alberto Barbera. “After years of respectability which had censored it.” Explicit sex scenes, forbidden fantasies, ‘basic instincts’, unleashed passions, taboos, folly, anger, shame…
In the adultery drama Babygirl, directed by Halina Reijn, a businesswoman (Nicole Kidman) has a sadomasochistic affair with her young intern (Harris Dickinson). “This movie is about desire,” said Nicole Kidman at the press conference. “It’s about our inner thoughts, it’s about secrets, it’s about marriage, it’s about truth, power, consent (…) This is one woman’ story and this is, I hope, a very liberating story. It’s told by a woman, through her gaze.”
Also through a woman’s gaze –and directed by a woman– is Diva futura, on the birth of Italy’s porn industry and the ways it revolutionized Italian culture in the 80s/90s. “Society condemns us on the one hand and on the other it desires us,” the narrator tells us. “And we loved surprising and scandalizing.” A woman wrote Supersex, the Nextflix TV series on pornstar Rocco Siffredi released earlier this year; a woman wrote Minx, the Starz series on the birth of a Playgirl-inspired magazine; a woman, Giulia Louise Steigerwalt, directed Diva futura. “My film tells the story of a dream,” said Steigerwalt. “That of revolutionizing the world of eroticism in a country [Italy] that had only experienced it with taboos and censorship. The desire to free the erotic imagination, however, was betrayed by forging a distorted image of female sexuality.”
Diva futura.
Female directors pushing boundaries and exploring the many aspects of female desire; gay directors challenging stereotypes around masculinity (Luca Guadagnino with Queer). “We all have a black box full of fantasies and taboos that we’d rather never share,” explained Halina Reijn. “I’m fascinated by the duality of human nature and with my film I try and shed light, without judgement, on the opposing forces that make up our personalities. For me, feminism is the freedom to explore vulnerability, love, shame, anger…”
In “Sex in Films: a One-sided Affair,” an article he penned for Playgirl back in 1973, renowned critic John Russell Taylor argued: “the interests and desires of women have seldom been taken much into account –in Hollywood or anywhere else (…) There was a lot of talk around the studios about Love as the great feminine subject. As something altogether apart from sex.” No longer.
