France, 2002
Director: Jacques Nolot
Stars: Jacques Nolot , Sébastien Viala, Olivier Torres
The only right place to see Jacques Nolot’s Glowing Eyes – released in the US as Porn Theatre – is in the cinema. I saw it in New York’s Quad Cinema on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Although Quad Cinema shows art house rather than porn, films that carry a warning of explicit sex scenes tend to draw a peculiar crowd, and I couldn’t help but notice that there were relatively many single and older men in the audience. I became aware of all the glances, the rustling of raincoats, and the muffled coughs around me, and found that the Quad Cinema that afternoon was mirroring events on screen. Was that guy in front of me just shifting in his seat or was he whacking off to the sexual encounters on the screen?
The film’s original French title is La Chatte à Deux Têtes, which roughly translates as The Double-Headed Pussy. The title refers not only to the straight porn film that is playing in the theater, but also to the binaries that the film explores: straight or gay, male or female, public or private, young or old – oppositions that dissolve when lust is exposed. This double-headed-ness is also emphasized by the way the “action” continuously shifts from the inside of the rather seedy Parisian theater to the outside, and back again. Outside, the female cashier (charmingly portrayed by Vittoria Scognamiglio) chats with the regulars, including a fifty-something HIV-positive man (played by director Jacques Nolot) and the transvestite prostitutes, and also with the young and straight projectionist (Sébastien Viala). The rather naïve projectionist has totally fallen for the cashier who, in her turn, fancies the distinguished regular who, in his turn, lusts after the young projectionist. This intriguing love/lust triangle forms the plot of the film, but never comes to full bloom. Instead, the three exchange memories, life philosophies, and ambitions, leading to an open end once the porn theater has closed for the day. They joyfully leave together, but we will never know if the projectionist will follow the advice given to him by the distinguished regular: the best way to experiment with homosexuality is a male-male-female threesome.
However, similar to porn, the plot of Glowing Eyes is rather thin and of less importance than the actual sex scenes: in this case, the sometimes sexually explicit portrayals of the daily rituals inside a porn theater. Throughout the day, men go in and out of the theater (where porn films are constantly playing, back to back) to masturbate, cruise for anonymous sex, visit with one of the transvestite prostitutes, or witness others having sex – both on and off screen. The film exposes and emphasizes the routines of the regular visitors, such as the newly arrived visitors who check the seats with bic lighters or matches, to avoid sitting down on a fresh puddle of cum. Regular cruisers and prostitutes know which men can be directly approached, and which should be left alone. Even the raiding by the Paris police is presented as a common occurrence that merely seems to function as a reminder to the real-life audience that public sex in France, even in a secluded space like a porn theater, is still illegal. In addition, one police officer voices the question that may be on the mind of some viewers: why do gay men go and watch a straight porn film when they really want to have sex with other men?
Glowing Eyes shuns this last question, as it presents the porn theater as a space where different men come to seek different sexual experiences for unspoken reasons, regardless of sexual identity. Some men are straight, some are gay, and some just want to make some money. Although public, the porn theater is an anonymous and secret space, with its own codes and rituals, and where the categories of the outside society no longer matter. The strength of Glowing Eyes is that the film neither makes political statements nor passes moral judgments. Instead the film provides often aesthetically beautiful tableaux vivants of sexual acts that are normally hidden in the darkness of seedy porn theaters.
Transvestites are shown giving blowjobs, one drag queen gets gangbanged in the men’s toilet, and there is even a cum shot. The blatant way in which Nolot depicts these sexually explicit acts somehow discourages sexual arousal in the viewer – they aren’t filler, titillating quasi-porn scenes. They are instead part of the film’s broader “anthropological” view, where explicit sex is documented as part of the daily experience in the porn theater, and so its inclusion only makes the film more convincing.
Throughout the film, the screen functions as a mirror, both literally and figuratively. The onscreen audience is filmed as if they are watching the off screen audience, just like we are watching them. We are implicated in the action, and made aware of our own voyeurism. By exposing the secret sex lives of the porn theater visitors, Jacques Nolot dares to expose our private sex lives as well.
When the porn theater closes and the onscreen audience leaves, the camera roams over the floor. Again, the action on the screen mirrors the off-screen experience of being in the cinema. Instead of popcorn crumbs and empty Coca-Cola cans, the floor is littered with crumpled tissues, used condoms, cigarette butts, and cum stains. Once the lights in Quad Cinema are lit and the audience leaves, I secretly glance at the floor ... only to see nothing there.
