“Pleasure” by Ninja Thyberg in the cinema: Swede becomes porn star – culture

Linnéa, 19 years old, Swedish, blonde and tattooed, has just arrived at the Los Angeles airport where the immigration officer asks why she is in the United States: “Business or pleasure?” Linnéa has to think for a moment. “Pleasure”, she finally says, and is allowed to happen.

The answer is well chosen. Evidence of business activity would have resulted in an awkward marathon of questions that would have forced her to reveal her real intentions: to become a big porn star. Still, she wasn’t completely lying, pleasure and pornography can certainly be associated. In any case, the Swedish director Ninja Thyberg lands the first ironic coup of her debut film with this overture. It is also called “Pleasure”, but will relentlessly correct Linnéa’s answer as the work progresses. At no moment is it about “pleasure”, but only about the male-dominated porn business and the torments associated with it – as a woman.

Linnéa (Sofia Kappel), who soon goes by the stage name Bella Cherry, lives with three other actresses in a bungalow. Before the first shoot, she gets nervous and is about to quit. The filmmakers and their male partner are nice, understanding, speak up to her and encourage her. After all, the camera is on, and the shy Linnéa instantly transforms into lustful Bella, who is just so shy, nervous and innocent that it fits the scene.

On the way up, to the circle of the A-Listers of a renowned agency, she makes herself available for increasingly extreme shoots. She’s making a BDSM film (the only time a woman has directed it), a rape and a “double anal” scene in which she has to take two penises rectally at the same time. The dressing of her sexual organs, which Thyberg staged in an almost body-horror-like manner, also includes painful training with butt plugs, with which she tries to stretch her anus.

The rough realism of the film is due to the participation of numerous “real” protagonists of the California porn industry, as well as Thyberg’s respectful encounter with an industry that exposes its problems on its own. It is above all the gray areas that Thyberg illuminates: the transitions between stage fright and real fear, consensus and humiliation, solidarity and opportunism are fluid.

Structural violence lurks behind the working processes of porn

Although all employees are always “nice” and mutual understanding is taken care of, the rape scene quickly gets out of hand, and structural violence lurks behind the work processes that is difficult to keep in check. Consensus is important; but just because it is pronounced does not mean that everything is “okay”. The act of being played turns into a real rape.

Because we are in the post-me-too-era, and Thyberg is maximally sensitized. The fact that the so-called “interracial” genre (sex between whites and blacks) is itself a racist term is just as explicitly stated as the need for women to have more power in industry. Over Chinese food and beer on the embankment, Linnéa ponders a feminist revolt with her friends. Later, however, she sacrifices her solidarity with her fellow campaigners for her own advancement: She looks the other way when there is an attack, convinces herself that one can have “bad days” at work.

In addition to the social, Thyberg also provides a formal analysis of the aesthetics of porn, the look of hot-making, which she breaks down into its cold components. The camera often moves in the space in which the image is created, between Linnaeus’ body and the camera held by men. Thyberg films Linnéa, followed by a reverse shot at the actors and the lens. In this way, she documents and deconstructs the production of the image before it can generate any kind of pleasure.

All that remains of the pleasure is the pose, and “Pleasure” is ultimately a film about posing. Linnéa poses for the camera on set, for her own cell phone when she takes photos for Instagram, at parties for each other’s cell phones. Her first professional photoshoot follows a meticulous body protocol: ass out, tits out, bend legs. During the shoot, the position of the genital organs and extremities is constantly monitored, directed and changed on command.

Trailer for the film:

Since Linnéa wants nothing more than what can be achieved by posing for the camera and preparing one’s own body, Thyberg’s film comes up against a limit in these poses and exhibited bodies. We do not learn anything about the precise reasons that led the young Swede to become a porn star. She succinctly explains to a friend that she wanted to leave her country because the Swedes suffer from a character flaw: “They are only sorry for themselves.”

Not wanting to feel sorry for herself, to be tough, that seems to be Linnéa’s only motivation for her way to the top. The film exhausts itself in its argument that female lust and sexuality in the porn context are a pure male fantasy, the result of a disdainful staging. But this exhaustion was preceded by hard work, in which Linnéa really gave everything.

Pleasure, Sweden, NL, F 2021 – Director: Ninja Thyberg. Book: Thyberg, Peter Modestij. Camera: Sophie Winqvist Loggins. With Sofia Kappel, Revika Anna Reustle, Evelyn Claire. World cinema film rental, 105 minutes. Theatrical release: 01/13/2021.