Sex: Boatman and Scorpio Nights

September 30, 2008

 

Personally, I find bold movies and pornography boring. Of course, it’s easier to tell what bold movies are—which is any film that involves nudity and sex—from pornography. I am not entirely sure about what pornography really is, but I’m sure of one thing: it’s a big bore, and so are bold movies. A couple of people fornicating does not really make for intellectual stimulation, and I find myself unable to be entertained when I feel that something as basic and mundane as sex is involved. I would rather read a book.

One such boring film is “Scorpio Nights” by Peque Gallaga (1985). This is how the distribution of the movie was in the span of one and a half hours: 10% story in the first part, 80% percent of sex almost the whole time, and 10% of the story in the ending. One can tell the story in ten, maybe twenty minutes without the sex scenes. I suppose the point of the movie is sex—wanton and sinful, sweaty or wet with rain—in which case, the point was very well made. All kinds of kinky and fetishistic sex was explored, from voyeurism to pink mosquito nets, plastic raincoats, soap suds, and even necrophilia. “Scorpio Nights” was all about fornication but it was saved from being common pornography (I am using the word loosely here to mean  material with the sole intention of sexually exciting the audience) by the shockingly gruesome ending.

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