Reasons why I like BODILY FLUID IS REVOLUTIONARY (2009, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, A++++++++++) include:
1.It doesn’t have prejudice against homosexuality.
2.It doesn’t have prejudice against bisexuality. Both gays and straight people have this kind of prejudice.
3.It doesn’t have prejudice against unpretty people.
4.It may support open relationship.
5.It doesn’t have prejudice against orgy.
6.It doesn’t have prejudice against relationship between old woman and young man.
7.It doesn’t have prejudice against sexual relationship between doctor and patient.
8.It is against narrow-minded people.
9.It is very touching.
10.It breaks free from both moral conventions and narrative conventions.
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8 comments:
Can you describe the film a bit please, because I haven't seen it but the title sounds interesting and you clearly like it a lot.
lol
I don't know if you will be disappointed or not when I tell you that the only bodily fluid which we can see fully in this film is just sweat, not semen. :-)
I'm sorry I have been very busy. I think I will try to describe this film later when I have time. Please wait.
555. That's not disappointing! Thanks.
I have seen this film only once, so I apologize in advance if I remember anything wrongly.
SPOILERS ALERT
In the first scene of this film, we see a nun talking passionately about her desire for a man and a woman. I'm not sure if she is talking happily or if she is tormented by her desires. She talks on a bare stage. We see only her and a spotlight. She uses flowery language in her talking. Her talk is interrupted from time to time by a voice of the director of that scene. We don't see this director. This director commented on how he wants to improve the scene. He wants to change the acting in some moments, wants to change the blocking in another moment, or something like that. He concludes it by saying something like, "I don't have time to re-shoot this scene."
I like the opening of this film very much. It indicates in advance what we will see in this film, including:
1.The nun talks about her lust or love for a man and a woman. That means this film is about breaking taboo or crossing some moral lines. And it doesn't cross only one moral line.
2.The opening scene is surreal, like the film we are gonna see.
3.The film is self-reflexive.
4.The film is about inner torment. The nun may represent the state of mind of Gaze, a character in this film.
After the opening scene, we see the trailer of the film BODILY FLUID IS REVOLUTIONARY. I think it is quite unique to include a trailer of the film in the film. I think doing this kind of thing is also a way to tell the audience that "you are watching a film". This film repeatedly tells the audience this message in various ways, and it does this job in very funny ways and entertaining ways, not annoying ways.
(to be continued)
After the trailer, we see the words, “Ingeborga Dapkunaite proudly presents” or something like that. Then the film starts to tell its story. The first five minutes of the film seems to tell the story very fast. We see Nob (Attapol Anantaworasakul) and Gaze (Watcharapong Kanjanakrit), a gay couple, talking to each other in an amicably way. We see that they are a happy, loving couple who live together. Then their problem starts. Gaze becomes allergic to any bodily fluid which comes out of Nob’s body, including sweat, saliva, tears, and semen. That means they should not make love to each other. Gaze tells Nob that Gaze may have to have sex with other men, because he cannot have sex with Nob anymore. Nob doesn’t like this idea. Gaze seems to be able to separate sex from love. He thinks he can have sex with other guys, but he still loves Nob.
They quarrel with each other, but the quarrel is interrupted for a short period by some scratches on the surface of the film. That means the scratches are intentional. In the first few seconds that we see these scratches, we are not sure if these scratches are intentional or not. We assume that maybe the DVD is bad or ruined. But then we see that the characters suddenly stop quarrel and are surprised by the scratches, too. This is one of the delicious moments when the fictional world in the film seems to be intruded or interrupted.
Gaze consults with a female, middle-aged, plain-looking doctor (Sawanee Uthumma) about his health problem. The doctor flirts with him and says something like, “If you can’t have sex with Nob, you can have sex with me instead.”. The scene is shot in an interesting way. We see the doctor on the left side of the screen. We see a mirror with the reflection of Gaze on the right side of the screen. But after a while, it seems that the head of Gaze is enlarged without any reasons. The scene becomes surreal. It seems like the filmmaker enjoys using mirror, but doesn’t only use it in a conventional way.
Another favorite scene in the film is when Gaze and Nob talk with each other. They love each other very much. They seem to want to kiss, hug and caress each other, but they can’t. They don’t know how to solve their problems. Their torment seems to touch an audience like me very much. At that point, the film seems to turn into a great melodrama film like ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, but the filmmaker stops the melodramatically touching feelings in this scene by emphasizing these feelings to the point that the audience become aware that they are watching a melodramatic scene and become aware that their feelings are being aroused. The filmmaker does this by adding a voiceover of a girl into this scene. The voice of the girl describes the inner feelings of Nob and Gaze. It seems like she is reading the love story of Nob and Gaze in a silly teenage magazine. The voiceover of the girl intrudes into the fictional world of the film, and destroys the melodramatic spell that the scene seems to have over the audience.
Nob satisfies his sexual needs by masturbating while watching erotic films. Gaze tries to have sex with another man, but Gaze is ashamed of the rashes on his back which are caused by his allergy to Nob’s bodily fluid. Gaze tries to hide his rashes from this man, so the lovemaking becomes awkward and interrupted. Gaze is not successful in having sex with another man.
Then we see Nob and the doctor sitting in a dark room waiting for Gaze. There is a back projection behind them showing images of mouths or something like that. From their conversation, we understand that they find a solution now. Gaze will have sex with the doctor, because the doctor wants it and she doesn’t mind Gaze’s rashes. They will let Nob watch them having sex. Nob asks the doctor if she tells anybody about this. The doctor says that she told her ex-husband. Her ex-husband and she love each other very much. I’m sorry that I can’t remember the details of what she said. From what I remember, I think her ex-husband became so ill that he could not satisfy her sexual needs any more. Her ex-husband decided to divorce from her, because he loves her very much and doesn’t want to stand in the way of her happiness. Her ex-husband moved to live with his own family, but the doctor still contacts him regularly and tells him everything because she “doesn’t want to do it behind his back.”
Gaze arrives. He gets on top of the doctor, but his eyes are looking at Nob. Nob masturbates while looking at Gaze. Then we see both their physical action and their mental action at the same time. They may not directly make love with each other, but they are “emotionally” or “mentally” making love with each other. We see Gaze and Nob mentally touch each other and make love with each other. Their mental bodies sweat a lot. And they don’t have to be afraid of this mental sweat. The back projection behind them shows the nun singing TIME TO SAY GOODBYE. Nob starts singing this song while masturbating. Gaze starts singing this song, too, while having sex with the doctor. This scene is a real climax for me. This scene is one of the most touching scenes I have ever seen. We see two people who love each other can overcome the big obstacles in their love. I felt like crying a bucketful of tears for this scene.
But the scratches come back again. The face of Nob is distorted for a while by the scratches on the surface of the film. The characters become very frightened of these scratches. We see Gaze and Nob running in the dark, trying to escape from some unknown dark forces. The screen becomes blank. We see the logo of “SOKON DVD”. We realize now that what we have just seen seems to be what “a character” has just seen on a DVD and that character decides to stop seeing this film and taking out the DVD from the DVD player because that character cannot bare watching these two people mentally making love to each other.
Then we see a schoolgirl standing in front of a back projection. The back projection shows a nice-looking room in a house. The schoolgirl says that now she will obey her parents and will not go astray. She also sees some whiteness spreading in front of her. She cries a little bit, and tries to pick some tissue paper from the back projection. The tissue paper miraculously comes out of the back projection into her hand. She uses it to wipe her tears.
What I like very much in this film includes:
1.The acting is very natural. Attapol and Watcharapong are great actors. They used to play a gay couple in a stage play called I LOVE YOU…GUY (2007, Saifah Tanthana, A+), which is adapted from MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING. They also performed together in a play called HER VOICE (2006, Saifah Tanthana, A+). Sawanee Uthumma is one of the best actresses in Thailand.
2.While the acting is natural, other elements in the film are surreal. I think the film mixes these contrasting elements very well.
3.The surreal things in this film include symbolic props, such as some paintings and a sculpture. In a later scene in the film, we also see the painting THIS IS NOT A PIPE by Rene Magritte.
4.What I love in this film is that the film both uses symbolic props and makes fun of symbolic props at the same time. I think the scene which elicits the most laughs from the viewers is the scene in which we see Nob and Gaze talking to each other in the background. In the foreground, we see a sculpture. From the point of view of the audience, the sculpture in the foreground is situated right in between Nob and Gaze in the background. The sculpture seems to indicate the feeling of distance between them. This kind of symbolic things can be found in millions of films. So this thing alone doesn’t make this film special. What makes this film special is that after a while, we see that the sculpture seems to move around, while Nob and Gaze still stand at the same place. The filmmaker seems to enjoy using symbols and laugh at them at the same time.
5.The film doesn’t have prejudice against a woman who expresses her sexual desire.
The whole film is 35-minute long. I think my description can represent only 10 % of the film. If anyone wants to add anything about this film, please do it.
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