Review: City Of Men

Women: Stories of Passion.City of Men.

Starring Aleksandra Kaniak (as Anna), Araceli Jover (as Pascal), Jean-Luc Martin (as Joseph), Cristian Letelier (as Ivan), Bernard Zette (as the Blind Man), Joe Tab (as the Clown) and Elisa M. Rothstein (as the Interviewer).

A future society segregates the sexes..

*****

The scene opens with The Interviewer and Anna sitting together in a room, with photography equipment behind them. The Interviewer is late but Anna does not mind. She thinks that ‘confessing’ will be fun but decides to tell a fantasy that she had of the future. Men and women are divided and live in separate cities and they come together once a year for a mating ceremony. Before the ceremony, each man and woman is given a film of the person they will be mating with and that is the only thing that is considered ‘art’ by the State. And in this fantasy, Anna is the State’s official pornographer.

Anna and her assistant, Pascal, are in military uniform and are in a café in the City of Men, looking for their next subject. The men are only allowed a certain amount of time for eye contact and Pascal notes that one man is too pretty. Another sings to them and they ignore him. They focus on a ‘dark flower’, a well-built man with dark eyes and dark hair named Joseph and he is escorted out. Anna explains that they are expressly forbidden to have sex with their subjects and that if the rule is broken, harsh consequences follow.

In the studio, Anna checks her equipment while Joseph paces around, examining the room. Anna gets behind the camera and starts to give Joseph directions. “Remove your vest and walk slowly towards the bed.” Pascal pulls the covers back to reveal rose petals strewn across the white sheets. Anna has him disrobe, down to his loincloth-like underwear while Pascal also disrobes in the corner. Pascal has long reddish-brown hair and B size breasts. Joseph crawls across the bed like a lion, then sits against the wall, the petals around him.

Anna asks him to touch himself, as if someone he desires is touching him. As he begins to do so, Pascal unzips her pants and slides a hand into her panties. Watching Pascal play with herself, Joseph masturbates, rubbing the rose petals all over his chest and face. He cums in no time and the scene ends.

Anna states that now she and Pascal have some time to themselves. The two women dance a seductive tango together, ending just as their next subject arrives. Ivan enters the room and he greets the women, saying that he has something special planned for them. He takes his jacket off and his body from neck to feet is painted different colors. Anna explains that he used to be a performance artist before art was outlawed by the State. He begins his performance to music that Anna has put on. He does a very erotic dance and at the end Pascal, drenches him with water, washing him clean.

Back in the café in the City of Men, Anna talks about how she has never found a man that has aroused her enough to break the no-contact rule. Her glove drops to the floor and a blind man with long, dark hair retrieves it. Anna feels something for him but when Pascal questions her, she cannot say what it is. They select the blind man to be their subject and they leave.

At the studio, Anna asks him to disrobe. He takes his jacket off and Pascal pushes him to the wall. She then turns a fan on him and dumps confetti into it so that it blows in his face. Anna sees that it’s hurting him so she turns off the camera and asks Pascal to turn off the fan. She feels a pull for this man and asks Pascal to leave her alone with him. Knowing that her friend is going to break the code, she touches her face longingly, then departs.

She says that all of the times that she was allowed to look, but not touch, has gotten to her and that she wants to touch him. She begins by touching his face and lips, then removes his skirt and touches his chest. She allows him to undress her and he lets his hands and face ‘see’ her body. She puts a blindfold on so that she can touch and not see, just like him and she is aroused by his words. Just then, a klaxon sounds and guards rush in. She is caught.

Her penalty was to lose her rank and be confined naked and humiliated by men who walk by and leer at her. In the silence of the jail, a guard opens her cell door, finding that it is Pascal in disguise. And they leave together with the camera filming the exit.

OPINION: Two out of four. The blind man angle was interesting but not fleshed out enough and the woman who played Anna was so thin that her bones stuck out. Didn’t turn me on. The plot was interesting but not enough to save this episode.