Black Orchid, Full (1993)

76% (10 / 3)

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Description: Enter a decadent world of lust and blindness, where a burned out erotic writer suffers from a deep desire to believe in love and innocence again. Behind his best-selling book, Black Orchid, is a powerful, sex-hungry executive waiting to live out his utmost sexual fantasies through the writer's eyes. At the Edge of Darkness, Power Replaces Passion... And Boredom is Filled with Manipulation
Scene Breakdowns
Scene 1. Alana, Ona Z
Scene 2. Alana, Cal Jammer, TT Boy
Scene 3. Lacy Rose, Jonathan Morgan
Scene 4. Ona Z, Steve Drake
Scene 5. Kimberly Kupps, Sunset Thomas
Scene 6. Kimberly Kupps, Cal Jammer
Scene 7. Sunset Thomas, Zack Thomas
Scene 8. Ariana, TT Boy
Scene 9. Sunset Thomas, Steve Drake
Review:
Michael Ninn's first masterpiece, following interesting experiments like TWO SISTERS and PRINCIPLES OF LUST, proves the director's talent for artful assimilation, blending a visual style heavily influenced by Andrew Blake with narrative complexity and blistering sexual heat. Deliberately vague but compelling plot can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, none of them very uplifting as there's no escaping the film's all-embracing sense of loss and regret. It's unsurprising to learn that Ninn wrote this downbeat script during a bout of depression in the wake of a messy divorce. This is the movie that put Ninn on the adult industry map, stunningly shot and seamlessly edited to a pounding beat, yet not restricted to pure eye candy surface gloss in a way that much of his later work is.

This tells the tale of powerful though insecure publishing editor Blade (funny man Jonathan Morgan, effectively cast against type) who sends off a mysterious Madame (Ona Zee at her most glacially imperious) in search of the elusive writer (a hauntingly vulnerable Steve Drake) of a tome entitled "Black Orchid". In this book, the writer bared (and sold ?) his soul along with the sacred intimacy of a life shared with his one true love (Veronica Hart), thereby soothing the weary hearts of all those who have loved and lost and have picked up the novel in search of solace. The film continually drifts off into flights of fancy, fantasies inspired by the chapters of the book, yet never loses focus. Morgan, harboring painful memories of his own, commissions Drake to write another book, just for him, recapturing romance without fear of getting hurt, symbolically making the author his hired lover, an artist whoring his vision by turning his secrets of love into prose and putting a price on them. Soaring into the stratosphere at this point, the film becomes a paean to the mysteries of womankind, celebrating their life-affirming sensuality yet from a male viewpoint uncomprehending before the complexities of their "otherness".

Considering how emotionally closed off these characters are, Drake's final line comes as no surprise : "The end is always the same. Narcissus drowning in his own image." Loving one's self makes a poor substitute for the love bestowed upon another human being, whatever the risks. Wallowing in self pity as result of a break-up can never turn into the liberating experience we may want it to be. No man is an island, after all. Men and women might never be able to figure each other out but that's just part of the attraction between them to begin with. Perhaps we shouldn't keep on trying to get to the bottom of each other's closely guarded mysteries but accept them as aspects of the personality of those we find ourselves falling in love with. Maybe that is the first step on the road to understanding.

The film's overwhelming sense of sadness even extends to its melancholy, wistful sex scenes, best exemplified by the shower sequence involving then real life husband and wife team Sunset and Zack Thomas making love with such exquisite tenderness to bring tears to your eyes even as it turns you on. Ninn's open invitation for viewers to explore their own fears of abandonment eventually alienated a lot of adult critics come awards time, resulting in a snubbing as unexpected as it was undeserved from prize-giving organizations.

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