From [email protected] Fri May 26 17:59:03 EDT 1995
Article: 62272 of alt.sex.movies
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Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 21:13:50 UTC
Subject: Long Review: chameleons: not the sequel/a.k.a. Secrets:2
Lines: 244
Status: RO


If you have comments, could you mail them to me, since I can't read
alt.sex.movies locally (it's been censored), and it's difficult to
read in other locations.  Notes from memory, so I may have gotten
minor details wrong, don't correct me for those.

Sean 

[by the way, this note is laced with spoilers]

Secrets:2 (Chameleons: not the sequel)

Dir. & script: John Leslie
Cast: Deirdre Holland, Ashlyn Gere, Rocco Siffredi

Porn flics are the archetype of genre stripped down to its essentials:
the primary essential is to show people fucking, and that is what they,
for the most part, single mindly do.  Because of this, though, they
also have distinctive epiphenomenal properties: Umberto Eco recently
pointed out that if you find yourself watching a movie of people
driving in a car, and the shot lasts as long as the trip would in real
life, then you can immediately tell that you are watching a porn
flic---the purpose of the shot being to add padding between the bouts
of fucking, without having to spend money on inessentials like a plot.
But even if there is no plot, there is still a scenario which has,
like any genre, structuring conventions: boy meets girl and we can
assume that they are going to fuck; girl meets girl and we can assume
that they are going to fuck; couple meets couple and we can assume
that they are going to hold an impromptu orgy.  Jeff Koons recently
treated the judge in the custody suit over his son to a video of his
enstranged wife Illona Staller in a `girl meets snake and they fuck'
scene.  Women fucking each other is a staple of het porn, however men
fucking each other is definitely not: the men do nothing that could
remotely suggest homosexual behaviour.  Male homosexual sex is poison
in the het market.

What then are we to make of `Secrets:2' (also known as `Chameleons:
not the sequel'), marketed as a commercial het porn flic.

This provides what a porn flic is supposed to: lots of arousing and
explicit sex, but we also get noticably good photography and visual
design, and a cleverly self-aware plot that efficiently subverts,
subtly, or bluntly, a lot of the conventions of the genre.

The basic plot, by the end, fairly explicitly suggests Tony Scott's
`the Hunger' with Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie
in corresponding roles, but it is definitely a suggestion rather than
a rip off.  The similarity is increased by Gere's resemblance to Susan
Sarandon---which I noticed long before I had figured out the details
of the plot and spotted the other similarities (in retrospect you
might also say that Holland and Siffredi suggest Deneuve and Bowie).
The Vampire theme is much more heavily disguised though; Holland is a
woman who can steal the appearance of other people of either sex, and
somehow steals their abstract life essence (rather than the concrete
life essence of blood) at the same time; but underneath it's the usual
vampire theme of sex and power.

After a short preface, the opening is a party at which Gere has just
arrived, entourage of friends and boyfriend, in tow. More accurately,
this is an orgy, splendidly shot: lots of teasing angles of good
looking people in various stages of undress, touching and having sex,
along with a few of the usual closeups of boys with enormous erections
being fellated by girls; but the camera never lingers; for the most
part we just get an impression of (very) indulgent and decadent party
sensuality.  Among this crowd is Holland, being pawed by some man but
clearly really interested in Gere, who is in the middle of the room in
a group sex/dance scene.  When Gere gos to the toilet to tidy herself
up (and put some of her clothes back on), she follows. In the toilet,
Gere sees Holland in a mirror, and asks her what she wants.  Holland
simply takes of the dress she is wearing so that she is standing nude
in the doorway and stares sullenly at her (Holland, by the way, is
amazing looking in this --- my girlfriend described her as perfect).
Now, according to the conventions, since girl has met girl, they
should fuck, but Gere, while admiring Holland's body, is vaguely
contemptuous, saying that she will have to do something more than
stare if she wants `a piece of this ass'. Holland promptly does
something more, turning into a man (Siffredi), and ravishing her on
the spot. Meanwhile (as it later turns out, the real) Siffredi is back
in the party, looking drained: explainations are only provided later
in the plot, so we have no idea of what is going on at this stage,
except that there is a man where we expected a woman, and the result
was a bout of enthusiastic sex between Gere and Siffredi, at the end
of which we see a sweaty and drained Gere looking suspiciously at a
cool Holland who has put her dress back on, and, after adjusting an
earing, gives her a card with her phone number on (though where did
she keep a card in that dress?).

Next we see a relaxed Holland and a drained Siffredi traveling back
>from  the party in a stretch (another hint at the Hunger?). This is
followed by a bit of explaination about what is going on, and Siffredi
complains that Holland is gradually destroying him by taking on his
appearance and stealing his life essences, and why does she do it.
She doesn't seem very sympathetic to his plight, but they
fuck anyway (this is still a porn movie, after all).

Next, Gere arrives to talk to Holland and see if she can learn to do
what Holland does, and is introduced to Siffredi as her brother (a bit
disconcerting considering what we have just seen the two of them doing
together).

Now we have another try at the girl fucks girl scene with which we
were teased earlier: Gere, after asking about Holland's power, and
asking if she might be able to do it too, expresses some sympathy with
Holland, and then they start to make love: kissing, touching, being
sensual, with Holland behind Gere, caressing her breasts and kissing
her neck, while Gere reaches behind, between Holland's legs.  The
camera dwells on this long enough to get us settled down to expect a
gently sensual lesbian set piece, before we and Gere suddenly find an
erect penis where we thought Holland's crotch was. Gere turns,
shocked, to discover that Holland has taken on the appearance of
Siffredi again.  However, before anything can happen, Siffredi himself
appears at the door, looking drained because of what Holland has just
done.  Holland turns back into herself then goes off to talk to
Siffredi and get him out of the way, by sending him to bed to rest;
meanwhile, Gere finds a strap-on dildo lying in a corner, when Holland
returns we see her wearing it, and stroking it thoughtfully. `Don't
turn into him again', she orders, `now I'm going to fuck You', then
she orders Holland to strip, and crawl over and `suck her `cock'',
which Holland does, looking suitably submissive.  Now we finally get
the lesbian scene, but it is very different one from what we were
promised a minute or so ago.  Instead of two girls having sensual sex,
we have one girl being vigorously fucked from behind by another who is
wearing an enormous artificial penis.  Gere is efficiently dominant;
at one point she threatens to `buttfuck' Holland with her `huge cock'
and Holland looks genuinely scared at the prospect (she really can act
quite well).  The tables have been turned: first Holland tried to
dominate the sex by acquiring a penis, now Gere has the penis (albeit
fake) and is in charge.

Now we cut to later, where Holland is watching Siffredi on a bed.
What Holland is doing, by taking on his appearance, is, in effect,
killing him, of course, and now he dies: she watches him simply
evaporate into air, having been drained of life essence.

The next development is that Gere's boyfriend comes looking for her at
Holland's place and things get a bit complicated.  It seems that
Holland answers the door, and tells him that she has not seen her.
However, she invites him in and seduces him, and we realise that it is
actually Gere, who has taken on Holland's shape, because she
occasionally flickers into Gere's appearance.  Even though he is
freaked out by this slight flickering, he allows himself to be seduced
anyway, and then gets what he thinks is Holland to swear that she
won't tell Gere about this.

Of course the real Holland knows what is going on downstairs: we see her
in a bath, during the seduction, drained of energy because Gere has
assumed her appearance.  After Gere's boyfriend leaves, the two of
them confront one another, and it seems that now Gere is more powerful
that Holland, since Gere can take on Holland's appearance, but not
vice versa.  Holland is angry about this, in exactly the way that
Siffredi was angry about being dominated by her in the same way, but
there is nothing that she can do about it.  She retires to bed to
recover, and Gere goes out saying that she will find something to make
her feel better.

Now, Gere picks up a couple and brings them back to her boyfriend's
place, promising them an impromptu orgy. They follow, and while they
are waiting in the front room, Gere and her boyfriend fight in back,
with Gere dropping hints that she knows what happened between him and
Holland.  He denies everything and after an argument, she dismissively
takes on his appearance, apparently stealing all his life force in one
go; at any rate he slumps dead or at least unconscious on the floor.
Then she goes out to where the couple are and,still in the appearance
of her boyfriend, initiates a standard threesome.  After they have had
sex, one of the couple wonders what has happened to Gere, so Gere (as
her boyfriend) gos to look for herself, then comes back, as herself,
to say that now her boyfriend has gone to bed with a post-coital
migraine, but she has a girlfriend with whom they could all get
together for more sex. They are enthusiastic, so she brings them round
to Holland.  Then, while they are waiting in front, she gos and rouses
Holland, telling her that she has brought a couple round, and she can
take their life force to help her recover.  Then she leads her out to
meet the guests.  They are suitably impressed with how good Holland
looks, and again, according to the conventions, we can expect an orgy
scene: Holland and the man, Gere and the woman, and things do start to
warm up.  But before we go very far, Holland takes on in succession
the forms of both the couple stealing all their life essences, and
bringing the orgy to an abrupt stop.

Finally we get a power struggle between Holland and Gere, with Holland
again trying to assume Gere's appearance in order to dominate her, and
weaken her, but again, in spite of just having taken the life force of
the couple not being able to do it.  But Gere explains that she loves
her, and they will live together happily ever after (hmm...).  This is
not the end, however, Gere then turns into Siffredi, to explain what
really happened when he appeared to evaporate on the bed: he used his
last strength to take Gere over, as desperate attempt to survive. So
Siffredi and Holland are together again, but as the film ends it is
not clear what is going to happen next in their relationship.

It is only at the end of the movie that we can finally see some of the
tricks that Leslie is playing.  At the most obvious level, he is
constantly teasing us with what he is going to do next.  Conventions
in porn flics are pretty straightforward: we are introduced to a boy
and a girl, and we expect them to fuck, ditto for two girls, ditto for
two couples. But here we constantly lead to expect something and given
something else.  We are introduced to two women, thus we expect a
lesbian scene, but one of the women turns into a man, and we get het
sex instead.  Later we discover that it was a woman after all.  Again
later we are introduced to two women, and we get the beginning of a
sensual, touchy-feely, lesbian scene, but again this is violently
subverted by the sudden appearance of a penis where there shouldn't be
one, and when the scene continues, back with two women, it develops
into a recapitulation of the earlier scene that promised lesbian sex,
but provided het; the difference here is that the woman assumes the
appearance of a man by the cruder device of wearing a dildo, rather
than really turning into one, but compensates by being outrageously
dominant.  Finally, at the end we are promised an orgy, and this scene
is developed long enough for us to settle into the idea, before the
two guests are apparently casually killed by Gere and Holland (again
shades of an early scene in the Hunger, but without the blood).

Another more subtle point is that we are told at the end that someone
whom we thought was a girl (Gere) has actually been a different
person, a boy (Siffredi), for some time, and we realise that an
earlier scene which seemed to show Gere, in the guise of another girl,
Holland, seducing a boy, Gere's boyfriend, was actually a boy,
Siffredi, in the guise of a girl seducing a boy.  This elegantly
finesses the problem of hinting at homosexuality in het porn, and adds
a pleasing twist, only noticable on later reflection.

However, in the end you feel that this is not really a commercial porn
movie, even if it is marketed, and produced, as one. It is much too
ambitious and clever; it doesn't deliver the simple pleasures that a
porn movie should; there are too many jolts, places where the audience
is encouraged to settle down to enjoy something, only to have that
something taken violently away immediately after.  On the other hand,
measured by the the standards of genuine art, it is an admirable piece
of work that competes easily against most of what we get as
made-for-TV movies or in commercial cinema (which is not for the most
part into the business of subverting anything, least of all its own
conventional expectations about sex).

Like I said at the beginning, it is very well designed and filmed, it
plays clever knowing games with the audiences expectations of the
genre and with intelligent nods towards the conventions of Vampire
flics, you can't figure out everything that is going on without some
postviewing reflection, the people are beautiful and the sex is
lustfully enthusiastic and arousing.  Ken Tynan would have loved it.
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