All About “All About Anna”

The successful mainstream porn movie is an elusive thing, and usually happens by accident. "Wild Things" seems to have had the right sensibility, whereas both the heavy "Eyes Wide Shut" and David Cronenberg's "Crash" fell short, as did "Baise Moi". "Nine Songs"? Too dull. "Shortbus"? It isn't porn.

Denmark's Zentropa Productions, most closely associated here with Lars von Trier, has released a movie that combines some of the tenets of Dogma 95 with a script that seems like it was assembled out of the high school diaries of our favorite porn stars.

Read our review of "All About Anna" after the gap.
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All About Anna

Studio: Innocent Pictures/Zentropa Productions
Director: Jessica Nilsson
Cast: Gry Bay, Mark Stevens, Eileen Daly, Thomas Raft, Morten Shelbech, Thomas Lundy, Ovidie

Review by Gram Ponante

Anna (Gry Bay) is a theatrical costume designer unlucky in love but not wanting for sex. Director Nilsson makes the best of a problematic script that is often simplistic and precious. Marketed as a romantic movie for women, "All About Anna" certainly pays attention to all the tempestuous relationships a blindingly attractive woman can have in today's theatre community.

As in Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves", "AAA" features the heroine's love going off to sea and coming back compromised. The rest of the movie deals with Anna's comings and goings with Johann (Mark Stevens) and their mutual screwups.

Wicked Pictures is taking the unprecedented step for a porn company in distributing this movie in the United States. As a porn film, no one would argue that there is not enough sex in it. The sex depicted is also too tame for the established market. But the sets, direction, acting, and script are, in the absence of lots of humping, above par for standard porn fare.

So this might be the perfect porn gateway drug. The one blowjob carried to completion results in shame and awkwardness - just like in real life! - rather than sperm-gargling, sperm-drinking from champagne flutes, and/or sperm-swapping with Cytherea. So that's got to count for something.

Where "Anna" borrows best from Dogma '95 practitioners is the natural lighting and digital filming. Often the movie is heartbreakingly sweet and present, with no little help from its centerpiece, Gry Bay. Her episodes with men, women, and herself are refreshingly devoid of the porn posturing that often compensates here for a lack of time, budget, enthusiasm, beauty, and talent.

But without all the sex, the viewer turns his/her attention to things like the script, which doesn't do justice even to a thoughtful audience willing to forgive almost anything for the love of Gry Bay.

"I had to conquer my fear!" the script has Anna saying in voiceover. "I had to go back to that flat!"

Ultimately, "Anna" is a sweet movie with a happy ending. Men will like it for Bay, loopy roommate Eileen Daly, and LTG tryst partner Ovidie, and women will like it for Anna's choice in partners, especially Johann.

Do you know who won't like it? The French. But you'll have to watch the movie to learn why.

· "All About Anna" American homepage (myspace.com)
· Wicked (wickedpictures.com)
· "Gry Bay Gry, make your mother sigh" (gramponante.com)

Previously: Gry Bay in "All About Anna"