When I sat down to watch this movie, all I knew was that it had an intriguing title and it was something that my exquisitely film-literate friend Jeff was going to watch. It's a hybrid documentary, a mixture of voice-over and reenactments about the filmmaker Caveh Zahedi's struggles to true to be himself, be honest with the women he loves, and manage his insatiable desire for prostitutes.
The first thing you'll notice about this movie is that Caveh Zahedi, unlike most people one sees in sex scenes on film, is pretty gross. His eyes are buggy. He's skinny and weird and his body language is pretty desperate. He looks like a sex addict. You know immediately that what you are watching is pretty real - and that's what makes its mixture of derision and defense of his behavior so entertaining and interesting. He is asking us to mock him, but we also know that he is him; the filmmaker is not superior to his pathetic subject; he IS that pathetic subject.
Highly recommended. I laughed, I cringed, I did the "don't go in there!" horror movie routine. How often are movies both hilarious and strangely erotic? Plus it is a master class in making a low-budget into a benefit rather than a handicap. Zahedi goes on priceless (and short) digressions throughout the film, explaining the various filmmaking choices he had to make, in the same neurotic tone in which he explains why he had to have just one more prostitute. You will love him and you will be very glad that you/ your daughter/ your friend/ your mother is not the woman he is marrying at the end.
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