Review: 'Pleasure' interrogates the male gaze through a porn lens

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The drama 'Pleasure,' directed by Ninja Thyberg, is a daring dive into L.A.'s adult film industry.

Operating through Bella’s point of view, “Pleasure” initially maneuvers through distanced observations. Bella moves into a model house, forming a close bond with Joy , a fellow actress fresh from Florida, and similarly looking for gigs and representation. Joy, however, carries far more experience than Bella. When the pair meet with agents, for instance, Joy is comfortable with every category of adult entertainment, whereas Bella wants strictly conventional set-ups: Boy-girl, girl-girl.

In the other scene, Thyberg juxtaposes Bella’s auspicious bondage experience against her later filming a rough sex scene with a male director. In it, the line between performance and reality blur toward disturbing ends as fragmented images from Bella’s point of view, deployed like shrapnel by editors Amalie Westerlin Tjellesen and Olivia Neergaard-Holm, capture the two male performers giddily laughing as they viciously attack her.

But it’s Kappel, an actress with neither experience in the porn industry nor film, who turns in a star-making performance as Bella. She balances showing not just the insecurity and fear felt by this actress, but the joy too. Because Bella does love the pure theatrics of porn. She adores the freedom sex can bring. And she’s drawn toward the ways she can build her own reality behind a camera, whether it’s captured by a director or in a selfie. Kappel certainly knows what the camera desires.

 

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