Erotica & politics

This column was first published in the Age on November 9, 2002

Erotica is a risky business. Highly subjective, it only takes one wrong move and the whole thing seems too silly for words. So it is a brave idea for a series, and SBS is the channel for the job: 25 half-hour films, conceived and produced by German Regina Ziegler, with each episode being self contained and made by a different director from around the world. Screening at 9.30pm on Saturday nights, these films might be one way to cope with those long, sweaty summer evenings and the looming non-ratings period. The directors include Ken Russell, Nicholas Roeg, Hal Hartley and, in the film, which begins the series, our very own Paul Cox.

And there's the rub. I tried to be uninhibited as I watched an art teacher in her 40s (Gosia Dobrowolska) massage her much younger friend, Christine's (Claudia Karvan), beautiful body. I tried not to laugh when Barry Otto dropped his pants. I tried particularly hard not to laugh when Chris Haywood, playing an artist- dwarf, a la Toulouse-Lautrec, faxed Christine his drawings of vaginas.

It is not that lots of the much younger Karvan (this film is several years old) in the nude is not a bloody good thing. There should be more of it. But knowing that Paul Cox directed the film, and co-wrote it with Barry Dickens (and Margot Wiburd, but I confess I am not familiar with her work) did me in. Instead of feeling warm and tingly as the lesbian sponge bath action began, my mind wandered thus:

Early 1990s. Paul and Barry sit at a kitchen table in Brunswick, note pads in hand. Barry is scratching his beard thoughtfully. 'Paul, mate, do you reckon we should get a close up of young Claudia's nipples becoming erect in this scene? As Christine gently nudges her nipples with a sponge?' 'Yep, Bazza, I reckon that should do it. Claudia. Nude. Young. Erect nipples. Sponges. I like it. I like it a lot.' 'And Paul. Mate. What do women do in bed together?'

If Paul and Barry want the answer to that, and many other questions, they should watch for the 10pm doco (also SBS) by Sophie Jeaneau, When Girls talk about Sex. There is a lot more than languorous massages going on, and Jeaneau's ability to get relaxed candour from the young women she interviews is extraordinary. They are in their teens and early twenties, from France and Germany. Each young woman is introduced by establishing shots of them going about their business, to funky songs, but the interview itself is totally static. This works because these women have a directness, dignity, passion and poetry when they talk about sex, love and life that make them spellbinding.

If you stay with SBS tomorrow night (8.30pm) you will rouse passions of a different sort. Gough Whitlam: In his own Words is billed as the definitive Whitlam interview, to be screened the day before Remembrance Day, 18 years after the day of his sacking. When I was eight I had my own Its Time T-shirt and gave out Labor Party brochures in the Toorak shopping centre, but that was about it for me and the Whitlam era. So the documentary footage was a revelation. I had forgotten the power of Whitlam in his prime. And even the older, frail Gough reminds us of his sharp intelligence, his enthusiasm, and yes, his mistakes. Call me sentimental but this speech, made two days before he was elected, on December 2 1972 bought tears to my eyes: 'We need a vision in this country. Ben Chifley spoke of the light on the hill. It has flickered in recent years. It is essential now for us to set it aflame again.' Lest we forget.

Permanent Link for this Article