Yesterday afternoon after a movie marathon I had arranged for me and some friends at my house that lasted for almost 20 hours (starting with Tarkovski's Offret (1986), and continuing with Paul Morrissey's Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) - after which we parted to seperately enjoy Walerian Borowczyk's Dzieje grzechu (Story of Sin / 1975) and Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997)), we were completely burned out, yet our lust for films wasn't satisfied at all. 

One of us had the brilliant idea to try some Richard Kern. He put in one of his DVDs he had purchased a few years ago, and we were ready to watch The Bitches (1992).

As the title might suggest, the film starts with two bitchy girls, sitting around on the sofa, coloring their nails, and being bored to death. But the scenery quickly changes when a young stud enters their appartment. They start to seduce him, dancing around the room and getting rid of their clothes. Everything goes as expected as he enjoys the two girls licking his body and jerking him off. But after that we are in for a surprise. 

The clichd buildup suddenly switches when our protagonist reappears in something resembling a skirt or a corselet. We see him being @#%$ in the ass by one of the girls with a strapped-on dildo, while having to suck the other ones plastic @#%$. The final twist shows him in an over-the-top presentation of every male porn-lovers holiest moment: the cum-shot. In an almost Bukake-like moment we see him soaked with sperm, his face almost buried under the onslaught which the two penis protheses keep shooting at him.

The gripping sound-design throughout the film resembles a gloomy jazz score underlayed with a pulsing electriconic beat which creates an otherworldly atmosphere while fuelling your anticipation of the things to come. As a whole, the film is a fascinatingly subversive take on the male gaze, turning the casual viewers expectations upside down and revealing the power structure and modes of suppression which work in our daily lives. Yet, despite its satirical view, it also has an inherent power to release the pent-up aggressions in a hilarious fashion. Beyond any established pathways of sex and eroticism we get a glimpse of the true nature of man. An emancipatory film in the best sense.