(2012, 60 min)
Country: U. S.
Director: James Franco, Travis Mathews
Studio: Strand Releasing
Language: English
SYNOPSIS: James Franco and Travis Mathews (I Want Your Love) collaborate on this experimental and sexually explicit film imagining what was cut from the formerly controversial classic Cruising. This is a smart, strange piece of avant-garde filmmaking that has been baffling and delighting audiences at film festivals all over the world.
REVIEW:
Inspired by 40 minutes of gay S&M footage lost or destroyed from William Friedkin's controversial (and underrated) 1980 film Cruising (the movie was cut to satisfy censors and avoid an "X" rating), curious movie-star James Franco and acclaimed I Want Your Love director Travis Mathews collaborated to create the explicit content that they imagine those edited scenes contained.
The resulting film, Interior. Leather Bar. is an experiment in defining boundaries: the real versus the imagined, the accepted norms versus the taboos of sexual expression, the nature of filmmaking versus its impact on life. Basically, this movie defies categorization.
James Franco and Travis Mathews assembled a group of both gay and straight actors - including the appealing lead, Val Lauren - in this project that challenged actors, directors and production crew to explore the implications of their roles individually and collectively in examining the implications of capturing sex on and off camera.
Viewers are asked to consider the nature of film viewing, filmmaking and the very idea of performing itself. And how it specifically relates to their own sexual identity, their level of comfort in watching explicit (even real) male-on-male sexual acts and the results of their experience — repulsion, titillation, enjoyment, satisfaction. Interior. Leather Bar. won't be to everyone's tastes, but it's a worthy (and incredibly sexy) experiment.
-- Thom Cardwell, TLA Video (http://www.TLAVideo.com)
