The 7 Kinkiest films of all time (fetishes explained!)

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Kink.

The word either shuts down your power or it sends you into the red zone.  Either way it’s a subject that has garnered a lot of attention over the years in cinema circles.  It has been an ongoing endeavor on the part of Hollywood (and particularly the French) to see who could make the kinkiest film without wandering into the land of pornography.

Except in Japan, where they don’t give a damn which category they are in as nobody can tell anyway.

This is the official Gaijinass list of Kinky films that either impressed the me or simply made me claw at my eyes and beckon merciful death to save me from my torment.  Again- I did not include “pink” films or soft core porn. Strictly “legit” cinema.

Now, feast your minds on the following.

7.Crash  

Director: David Cronenberg

Starring: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette

I first saw this movie in high school and I was riveted.  It wasn’t porn but it wasn’t not porn and nobody, and I mean nobody, brings the kink like Mr. James Spader.  He has made many a woman and many a man, closeted or un-closeted, feel hot in places where chunks come out of.

The brief plot synopsis is as follows: Spader’s character is married to Deborah Kara Unger’s (Roar!) character and the two of them enjoy shagging other people, then telling each other about it later in the evening while they sauce-make with one other.  The opening scenes of Crash are very hot, mostly due to Deborah Kara Unger (Roar!) but also helped along by a sexy Asian extra that Spader is de-flowering in a closet; as one does.

Spader’s character, James Ballard, is in a head on collision while driving at night.  The driver of the other vehicle is killed, but his wife, played by Holly Hunter, survives and the two of them, Spader and Hunter, are hospitalized at the same location.

They find themselves not only being sexually drawn to one another, but also being keenly attracted to the mutilation that has occurred to their own bodies and the vehicles they had been traveling in.  This and a triangular sort of sexual tension builds further when Elias Koteas, a man who chronicles and recreates great automobile accidents, is introduced.

Shortly there-after they recreate the famous crash of James Dean’s car; Same vehicle and all the same conditions.  Injuries occur, but then everyone basically just starts humping wildly.  Girl and boy; Boy and boy; Girl and boy and boy, etc.  Rosanna Arquette, a supremely ballsy actress, is introduced and her metal leg braces are a hindrance to Spader penetrating her but he eventually does anyway, because he’s Spader.

In the end, gender begins to bend and the rules no longer apply and it’s a movie about sexuality taken to limits that can no longer be controlled.  It’s a portrait of people who live life for sex instead of it being one of the pleasant accoutrements.

If you’ve been there you know how deep that abyss can go, if you haven’t then Crash is a cool way for you to get a vicarious hit off the high of being lost in your own sexual obsessions.

The KINK explained….

First we have Spader and Unger and their marital situation.  They have an “Open Marriage“, a term coined in the 1960’s that refers to married couples that agree to engage in extra-marital sex without it being considered infidelity.  In addition to this, they also have a some what Sado-Masochistic/quasi-voyeuristic element in that they tell, in graphic detail, the sexual encounters they had with others during that day.  Being the recipient of that information, even when one is in an “open relationship” can cause feelings of jealousy, and sexual arousal due to jealousy being a Masochistic trait.  In fetish communities, what these two are doing would be referred to as the ever popular “Cuckold” and the less well-known “Cuckquen” fetishes, respectively.

The car crash and the erotic connection with that, although somewhat dramatized and blurred in Crash (Holly Hunter’s breast being exposed while trying to escape the vehicle), is in reality a condition called Symphorophilia, and it is not only a product of car crashes, but of any kind of accident be it fires, floods, tsunamis or someone tripping on a shoelace and busting their dumb-ass teeth out.  These people become heavily aroused when being part of, or witnessing, a violent accident.

Rosanna Arquette’s character is locked into a pair of metal leg braces that hinder her mobility and this is an actual, clinical fetish.  It’s called Abasiophilia.  It refers to anyone that becomes sexually aroused by someone who is wheelchair bound or locked in leg braces etc.

Amongst these more exotic fetishes there is also simple down home homo-sexual sex and beyond all the rest of these is Cronenberg’s big hurray – Our total fetish with technology and our likely increasing sexual connection with it.

6.Sliver 

Director: Phillip Noyce 

Starring: Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, Jim Beaver, Tom Berenger, Anne Betancourt

In 1993 while with some friends, we had all bought tickets for Jurassic Park but then snuck into the theater showing Sliver at the Garmisch Kino Cinema, in Garmish, Germany.  It did not disappoint, me anyway.

Is this movie a “good movie”? Are two mustaches touching each other “Good”?  The answer, almost without exception, is NO.  The acting in this is pretty bunk and it’s basically a reason to have some kinky sex scenes and put on a voyeurism exhibition.

I’m not complaining.

Stone’s character moves into a new and swanky apartment building.  Everything is posh and top dollar.  But -oh my!- someone has installed video cameras in all the rooms of every apartment and spends all their time watching the tenets and jerking off.  To make it all the more “wacky”, there have been some “mysterious” deaths in the building and, particularly, in her new apartment.

Whatever.  Baldwin does a lot of humping with Stone and that’s good to go.

In the end, this movie has little punch but addresses a VERY popular fetish that many of us have yet come to acknowledge.

The KINK explained….

When I said a popular form of fetish that many of us have…I wasn’t talking about Erotophonophilia, or an intense sexual desire to murder people.  I guess some of you probably do have this, and good luck with that.  You’ve probably heard of some other infamous sicko’s that shared this (your?) proclivity ie. Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer.

Real charmers.

However, in Sliver the primary fetish being explored is that of Voyeurism.  They start it out with a tribute to the “old school” voyeur when while at a home warming party,  they spot a couple in an adjacent building humping and everyone takes a peek.  Later, as the film progresses we get to see the focus of this fetish exploration: technology and today’s tech savvy voyeur.  Cameras absolutely everywhere and someone, an unidentified culprit, can see and hear everything.

Voyeurism is a psycho-sexual disorder in which a person derives sexual pleasure and gratification from looking at the naked bodies and genital organs or observing the sexual acts of others. The voyeur is usually hidden from view of others.

But if that’s considered a disorder, well, then I guess I just don’t understand kids these days.

The person who is an honest to goodness voyeur has a strong compulsion to seek out unsuspecting victims and basically spy on them in vulnerable situations.  These people get off on this in a big way and sometimes have sexual fantasies connected to the behavior like going up to the person and slapping their erection on her cheek.  Usually, this doesn’t occur and a good session of chicken-chokery ends the voyeurs tensions. For now.

5.Audition

Director: Takashi Miike

Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura, Renji Ishibashi 

Japan is like ice cream for freaks.

It’s just a very strange place with many layers of cultural ambiguity upon cultural ambiguity.  Attitudes toward sex and the sexually deviant are vastly different from anything “western” and the end result is often a steady, low hum of never-ending kink in a very large amount of what is produced here be it film, music or fashion.

Audition seems to be a fetish film masquerading as a Horror flick.

The hip pocket synopsis is simple enough.  A lonely, widowed yet successful business man is invited to sit in on an audition (a fake one) for a film that his friend is (not) producing. Yes it is all a setup to find this guy a new wife. He is given a large stack of resumes and is asked to look at them before the audition takes place.

I want this guy as a friend.  I want him now.

His choice, and the young woman he falls for, is in the end, not what he expected.

Audition is extremely violent and employs a lot of the common tactics seen in most Japanese Horror films.  Less attention is paid to “scaring you” with a bang or a boo and much more effort is put into simply grossing you out and making you feel uncomfortable.  This is the only reason this film would be considered horror.  The gross out factor.  The fetish overtones totally and completely dominate the film.

Aoyama, the main character, chooses a very conservative and soft-spoken young woman.  She exactly looks the part of a dutiful wife and her manners are impeccable.  In reality, she is a psychopath and a liar.  Not to mention a supreme Sadist.

Story of my life.

The KINK explained…

Many a would be reviewer have dubbed this movie some sort of either A: statement about loneliness, particularly in Japan or B: an attempt to illustrate the struggle between men and women in Japanese society.  Both seem absurd to me.

Loneliness is a pervasive element in Japanese films simply because that’s often how life is here.  Most of the time, these lonely tones seem to be almost subconscious and even in so-called “comedic” movies there is a detachment and separation between characters that is simply put, “very Japanese.”

The idea also that this is about some grand social struggle is B.S.

What this movie is about is two major Kinky elements.  S&M and Chronophilia.

Chronophilia is a type of paraphilia or fetish that is identified by a sizable age difference between partners. Generally, anything beyond twenty years of age variation is considered to be Chronophilia.

The female character in Audition that Aoyama falls in love with is Asami, and she is 19.  He is clearly in his mid to late forties.

In addition to this, during the film, we come to understand that Asami has been, almost certainly, molested from a very early age.  Although this is still technically Chronophilia, the more specific nomenclature known as first Paedophilia or the mental disorder where a post-pubescent individual has sexual feelings for pre-pubscent children, the actual term also includes  Hebephilia and Ephebophilia, respectively.  In this film, the actual condition would be Ephebophilia (a sexual attraction to post-pubescent but younger individuals generally 16-19 years of age.)

This is a very clear look into the cultural kaleidoscopic of Japan and it’s obsession and fascination with both children as sexual objects and the continued sexualization of teenagers, generally females.

Next, the Sado-Masochistic under tones of this film are an 800 pound elephant in the corner of the room, wearing a leather hood.  Sado-Masochism, by the way, is the receiving of often sexual pleasure from either giving or receiving pain, humiliation or torture of some kind.

Really, so a supposedly weak, innocent and in need of help young girl finally reverses the roles with a much older man and takes charge, not only torturing him but humiliating him socially earlier in the film, and later in front of his own son.

It doesn’t get much more closet case Masochistic than that.

This prevalence for younger women to dominate supposedly strong men is wide-spread in most developed nations but particularly in Japan.  The director, Takashi Miike even goes so far as to install “safe words” in the form of a confusing sequence in which the audience is unsure as to whether the torture has actually happened at all, or if it was just a dream.

4.Trouble Every Day 

Director: Claire Denis

Starring: Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey and Béatrice Dalle

This was just one of those DVD’s I happened to pick on a weekend several years ago.  I am a bona fide Gallo fan and seeing his name on it gave me all the info I needed.  Well thank you, Vincent Gallo.

Trouble Every Day is a very subtle film with massive gore and again, many mistake it for a horror film.  Perhaps it is, that is something viewers will have to figure out themselves.  I personally found it to be much more of a thriller.

Essentially, a Doctor working on experiments into the human libido has a wife that is a full functioning real life “vampire” not Castlevania, garlic and holy water type vampire but a woman who likes to eat flesh.

Gallo is a newly married husband who comes to Paris in search of this doctor specifically because as we find out in the film, he has a very similar affliction, only that he seems to control it much more successfully than the doctors wife, who is kept locked up in a prison of a house all day.

Well, as you can imagine, in the end all hell breaks loose and people get eaten.  The  question that is left unanswered is “what’s next?”

Although it has  received very little attention from mainstream audiences,  Trouble Every Day was a featured film at Cannes in 2001 and was nominated for best film at both the Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film and the Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival.

The KINK explained…

In most films where people or people-like characters are eating humans and drinking blood it is all explained away by fantastic conditions like “A Zombie Apocalypse” or “Bodily possession by Satan” or good old-fashioned Ann Rice Vampire homo-erotica.

Not so in Trouble Every Day.

It’s made crystal clear very early in the film that this is a medical condition that the Doctor is working on curing, which means, that this is an actual film, a whole artsy film about  Vorarephilia (sexual pleasure from eating or being eaten by another person), Erotophonophilia (again!) and actual Vampirism.  

In the movie, it’s made clear again, the sick individuals are driven to these acts by extreme sexual desire, not anything even vaguely mystic.

These are fetishes I am quite content not to have, but they are put on display fantastically in this film.

Read Part 2