Film: All Boys
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 23rd May 2011
Distributor: Bounty
Certificate: 18
Running time: 73 mins
Director: Markku Heikkinen
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Finland/Denmark
Language: German/English/Czech
Review by: Sarah Hill
There’s something very artificial about the porn industry. Porn film scenarios are improbable and the clunky dialogue sounds false. And regardless of whether the actors are simulating sex or engaging in the act itself, the way sex is represented in porn films is largely unrealistic. Amidst all this artificiality, it’s often easy to forget that these films star real people with real emotions. All Boys seeks to explore how these performers feel about working in the porn industry, and to what extent they are being exploited.
In Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain meant that there were a number of young males who were uneducated, economically disadvantaged and eager to make money. This did not go unnoticed by producer George Duroy, who went on to found production company Bel Ami and turn Prague into the capital of gay porn.
The film follows producer Dan Komar, the man credited with creating the country’s first series of “bareback” films, and the young boys he casts in his films. All the boys are aged around 18-20, including Ruda, who is better known by his stage name, Aaron Hawke, due to his resemblance to the actor Ethan Hawke...
Perhaps the most striking thing about this documentary examining Prague’s porn industry is its lack of pornographic images. Many of what few graphic images there are in the film fly past in a whir and a blur, as if to acknowledge the fact that consumers are saturated with explicit images and it is the people behind them who are most important. In recognition of this, the film produces some fascinating character studies about those who are working in the industry. Producer Dan Komar is a typically exploitative producer – he chooses all the boys personally and, despite making a considerable amount of money, pays them very little. He also, rather sinisterly, lives with the boys as if they were a ‘family’.
Dan is quite an ambiguous character because although he is clearly treating the boys as commodities, he does seem to love them in his own way. Furthermore, not only is Dan ambiguous, he is also a mass of contradictions. He asserts that his decision to live with the boys is not a “Peter Pan thing;” it’s not a desperate attempt to keep himself young. However, he goes on to say that he had so much fun at the age of 27 that he decided to remain at that age. It’s very difficult to know what to believe. One suspects that even Dan doesn’t know what the truth it anymore: the truth is whatever he has convinced himself it is.
At times, Dan does evoke some sympathy from the viewer, particularly when he talks about his loneliness and how the most important thing in life is to “be in the arms of someone you care about.” It seems that, at least for a while, Ruda was a cure for Dan’s loneliness when they embarked on a three-year relationship. At the beginning of the film, Ruda is the Zac Efron of the “bareback” porn films. After growing up in a children’s home, his angelic features ensured that he became the biggest star within Prague’s porn industry. He has a certain self-assuredness that comes from both youth and from being part of Dan’s lucrative world of porn, where saying “I love you can get you a new pair of Armani jeans.” Ruda dreams of many things: to be a “big star like Jim Carrey” and, perhaps most poignantly, “to start a normal life without Dan.”
Although the film focuses mainly on the human aspect of the industry, through its exploration of the feelings of those involved – and rightly so – it also provides some interesting cultural analysis about the birth of the porn industry in Eastern Europe and how it symbolised the sense of freedom and liberation that existed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In addition, the voiceover informs that during the mid-2000s, there were approximately 3,000 gay porn films produced worldwide and 2,000 of those were Czech, which reinforces just how successful the industry was at its peak. The voiceover also states that porn could not exist without the “free consumer.” However, with the increasing abundance of free online porn, the consumer soon went elsewhere and, within ten years, the Czech porn scene had “greedily eaten itself up.”
But once the industry imploded, what became of the boys who made it what it was? Some, like Filip, are fine - for the most part - and are able to build a relatively normal life for themselves. Others, like Ruda, did not fare so well. Although the distressing outcome of Ruda’s short time in the industry was likely given his background, it is still a shock. The cut from the image of Dan talking to the image of Ruda in the present forcibly jolts the viewer. To witness the extent of his decline is devastating; it is clear that unless he gets help urgently, his life is over - and he’s only in his mid twenties. It is a shame, therefore, that this section of the film feels slightly rushed. The filmmaker could have afforded to spend more time examining just how these boys were affected by the industry, as it seems that this is the whole point of the film. However, whilst the final few scenes may pass by too quickly, one thing is clear: the industry that greedily ate itself up swallowed up boys like Ruda and spewed them back out, leaving them with nothing.
All Boys lets itself down slightly due to the fact that too much time is spent focusing on those who produce the films when more time could have been given to exploring the affect that being part of the industry had on its former stars. The film is also not as visually interesting as it could have been. Despite this, All Boys is both compelling and heartbreaking. In this documentary about the porn industry, it is not the use of explicit imagery that is the most shocking aspect, but rather the extent to which those working within the industry are exploited. SH
