Transcription
Pion, which is the debut feature from writer director Harry Lighton, adapted from a novel by Adam Mars Jones.
Weirdly enough, I was in a screening this week. And Adam Mars Jones, who I used to know from News Night Review, Critic Days, um, who's the novelist upon whose novel uh, Pillian is based. I said, Adam, can I just ask you how close is Pion to your book? And he said, if they changed the character names, I wouldn't have recognized it as the book. And he said, and incidentally, I say that as a compliment. So, I haven't read Box Hill, but I know that Pillion is sort of very different from it. And when you interviewed um Alexander Scarsgard last week, he said that the book is a lot is a lot cruer is a lot >> which I thought was I thought it was very interesting because I thought the movie is edging that way.
Anyway, >> well, the movie was described by Mr. Scarsgard as a domcom, as in a sub and domcom. This is a genre type that will sit along. Do you remember when Bill Ny first described Sha of the Dead as a romcom? >> I do remember that now. Yes. >> So the poster quotes for for Pillian say sexy, hilarious, brilliant. To which I think you would also add and squirminducingly awkward, >> excruciating. >> So at times it's like a kind of bizarre mashup of William Freen Cruising, which is set in the leather bars of New York, and Carry On Camping. which got this kind of on the one hand this sort of explicit leatherclad sex and on the other hand these strangely quaint British local.
So Scarsgard is Ry who is this ultra butch biker who catches the eye of Colin played by Harry Meling who's a Harry Potter alumni who's had a really really impressive posth Hogwarts career. We saw him quite recently in Harvest and Rey is a long-term dominant partner in subdom relationships and he sees in Colin I think he calls it a talent for adoration and Colin who previously has had no experience of the BDSM lifestyle sort of takes to this new role like a like I was going to say like a fish to water but like a new fish to water when Rey asks him and he said this in the interview what am I going to do with you he says says anything you like, which means okay, we're consenting on this in this relationship. And so they begin this odd couple relationship. Ray, who is this impenetrable, enigmatic pinup with a cruel streak who takes great pleasure in humiliating his new playmates whilst apparently also repressing feelings, emotions that he has. And then Colin, who is this retiring floppy head mummies boy who is still trying to sort of maintain a balance between on the one hand this new thing that he's discovered which is that he's a sub and on the other hand a sense of normaly with his nice suburban parents.
Here is a clip. >> Um I was uh wondering if maybe you might want to come have dinner with my parents sometime. uh dinner with your parents. >> Yeah. >> And you'd like that? >> Yeah. No, I mean, you know, they wouldn't I don't think that's a very good idea. >> Okay. No, >> sorry. >> Yeah. And when he says it's not a very good idea, I think he's right. >> But but also that moment when he starts humming along. Nope. Which is a nice little detail about the way that the that the the relationship is set up.
So look, there have been loads of films about BDSM, many of which I have introduced on film for extreme channel. So you know, there's Barbett Schroeder's Matress, there's Frank Riplo's Taxis on Clo, Kirby Dick's sick, the life and death of Bob Flanagan super masochist, Nick Broomfield's fetishes, and then most recently we had this really great Finnish sort of existential black comedy, Dogs Don't Wear Pants, which I really, really liked. And the best of those films understand two things about BDSM relationships. The first one is that they are they are fiercely consensual and I mean often more so than apparently in inverted commas normal relationships because it's decide you this is what we do. This is what we don't do. This is what this is what the roles are. The second thing is that the the power in a in a sort of sub and dom relationship often doesn't lie with the dominant partner. the the power actually resides with the sub who is sort of authoring the scene and the best movies about it understand that.
What makes Pion slightly different is that the roles haven't yet been clearly drawn, at least not for Colin, who is in the process of discovering them, meaning that he's not entirely sure whether he wants to be doing this in the same way that the audience is sort of slightly confused. So, this is made it's made explicit by the fact and you and I talked about this after we we saw the film because we talked about after we I think we had different responses to it, but there is a moment in which Colin says to um to Ry, I I want days off. I want days in which we just behave normally. I want I want to be able to sleep in the bed, not on the floor. And you know, the other normal thing is he want they wants them to go on a date and he wants them to to kiss. And the scene that you referred to in the in the interview, if you haven't heard the interview that Simon did with Alexander, go and listen to it because it's a really good interview and he's very very eloquent about this. When he goes to the dinner and they do go to see the mom and dad and the mom basically says to Ry, "You're," and she uses a very strong word, but the word is, "You're horrible. What are you doing with my son?" >> Yeah. And the the thing that makes that scene so kind of uncomfortable is that because of the way the thing is set up, we're not yet sure whether this is what Colin wants or I mean yes, okay, he's adopted the clothes and he's adopted the neck chain and he's adopted this, you know, the sub position which he's obviously getting pleasure out of, but he also seems to want, you know, something else. So there is this whole thing going on that they have this consensual relationship, but one part of that consensual relationship still seems to be figuring out whether or not that is actually what they want. And I think this is what makes the film for all it, you know, the thing about hilarious and sexy and and all that stuff which it says on the poster. I also think it's deeply uncomfortable. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's deeply uncomfortable because the uncertainty is there's this whole area of discovery which hasn't yet sort of become fullyfledged consent.
I mean, in terms of the sort of the there's obviously a lot of kind of comedic juosition you know all those things like that that title last tango and Halifax and there was a documentary called Boogie Nights in Brmley. this idea about, you know, sort of exotic sex with British British locations. There is a sort of thing of that going on all the way through this, which I think is one of the things that people are finding sort of, you know, most comedic, that kind of collision of those two worlds. I have to say the film is refreshingly unabashed in its treatment of the mechanics of sex. I mean, the BBFC thing, it's it's 18 for strong sex and nudity. Um, and I think you said after you'd seen it that you thought it was one of the most explicit films that you'd seen. Is that right? >> Certainly for certainly for this program. Yes. Refreshingly. I would It's unabashed. I'm not sure about the refreshingly really I could have done with less less freshness. >> But I wonder whether if you compare that to the way in which um heterosexual sex is depicted on screen. I think I mean I wonder whether it's is it is it any more explicit than >> it's because it was I mean I I said to Mr. Scarsgard. Uh, how close does this get to an abusive relationship? Yes. >> Because I thought it was an abusive relationship. I thought >> Yes. Which is kind of what I was sort of trying to to talk about before. >> And so I think when you see when you see an abusive relationship, which is what the mother is kind of clearly experiencing and the fact that she's dying, obviously she's got absolutely no reservations about she's going to have to come out and say this straight away. When she says you're a c-word, I'm thinking, yeah, you're right. because on on the evidence available to the parents, he is abusing his relationship with their son. So, I'm not sure it's the it's the mechanics, it's just the fact that it is an abusive relationship which is never comfortable to watch.
Although during the course of it, Colin does come to discover that that he is a sub. That is what he is and that is what he wants. But it but that happens during the course of the movie. And I think, as I said, that's kind of why with any of these things, that's where the danger zone is and that's what that's what I think makes it interesting. I was it was funny when I was watching it, I was reminded, did you ever see Nine and a Half Weeks with Mickey Rock and Kim Bas? >> Yeah. A long time ago. >> Okay. So, it's not a very good film. It's a very kind of Hollywood glossy, you know, blandification of a of a potentially interesting source. But there's a there's a exchange in that in which Kim Basinger says to Mickey Rock, "How did you know I would respond to you the way I did?" And Mickey Rock says, "Because when I looked at you, I saw me." And the film isn't any good. But that one line kind of sticks out as okay. It's one it's like one of the very few insightful moments that that the that the whole subdom thing it's it's it's an agreement and it's two parts of the two sides of the same coin and it's two people in a consensual agreed situation. I think there is an echo of that here. The diff the thing here is that as as in the case with nine and a half weeks, one of them knows it and the other one is is is still discovering it. I mean in the end how you feel about the film will will kind of uh depend on how you feel about that tension and I can imagine people at one minute laughing and finding it sort of absurdest and then another minute recoiling and being sort of and being shocked.
I mean, I was you said afterwards I never did like picnics, but >> especially remind me if I'm ever offered uh to go on a picnic in a kind of a dumb subb kind of sub subdom kind of uh No, I don't think so. Um that doesn't look like I mean thing about picnics is there's too much Tupperware anyway and I would rather just have a sandwich at home. But >> but I was with I was in a screening not the same screening that Adam Miles Jones was at another screening and a couple of critics were talking about it a friend of mine who's Linda he's a very very good critic and so I thought it was really sweet just thought it was really sweet and really you know and your and your but so so what what what I think is in many ways it is it is what you bring to it and you know and how uncomfortable it makes you feel is kind of dependent on that. But I also think that one of its strengths is that it does make you feel uncomfortable is that it does it does raise exactly the kind of question that we're having at the the discussion that we're having.
And if you're watching it on your laptop in the kitchen, >> which is what I I just thought I can't if someone walks in now, I can't be watching this because there's no amount of explanation. It's for work. Uh that was going to get me out of this. >> They should put that on the poster. hilarious, sexy, brilliant. Don't watch it on your laptop in the kitchen. >> I mean, but you're right. I mean, there was It is laugh out loud when this Viking god um turns up and the initial reaction with the parents that they say you it sounds as though you're not from around here and he says chisel burst. That's that's funny. I wanted more of that to be perfectly honest.