Reviews
The Pornographer: A Love Story (2004)
Proceeding at an obscenely slow pace...
I saw "The Pornographer: A Love Story" at the Tribeca Film Festival on May 2, 2004 and, thus, was surprised to learn that it was produced in 2000. Having said that, however, I am not surprised to learn that it has never been distributed. It's not that it's "bad" as in uninteresting or poorly crafted, so much. The problem is more that it proceeds at a snail's pace to...well, nowhere. There is some decent dialoge, attractive actors who engage each other well (for the most part), and a flair for taking a different approach to the production (such as having the characters use the digital video camera that is an important set piece as a practical prop that captures some of the video in the movie). But there's no "there" there, as the saying goes. It might have been much more effective as a 20-30 minute short instead of a roughly 90-minute feature.
Add that to the fact that the title (which the director himself seemed unable or unwilling to explain, since it's got nothing to do with pornography) would probably not draw the average American movie-goer and I would expect this one will never even see the inside of most arthouse theaters. I also haven't seen it in the video store; any chance it can't even get a decent straight-to-video release?