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45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Boulevard of tears (but no excuses), May 18, 2002
The filmmakers interviewed 102 hustlers (that's correct, one turned out to be underage and his contribution could not be used, so a replacement was recruited) to make this documentary. Most were street hustlers who work Santa Monica Boulevard; the others were recruited through escort services and magazine ads. Each one had an opportunity to tell his story. There is little evidence of their conversations being directed by an interviewer, though it is apparent from the directors' commentary that the monologues were for the most part respsonses to questions put to them by co-director Randy Barbato. To prevent the film from becoming monotonous and repetitious, it was edited and assembled into seventeen chapters with titles like, "Losing It," "The First Trick," "Gay," "Straight," "Turn-ons," "Turn-offs," "Pain," "Weird [stuff]," "Drugs," and "The Future." The paucity of high-rent call boys (the directors, after all, only paid the men $50 for their one-hour videotaped interviews) prevented this film from being an unintentional glamorization of prostitution. The stories, for the most part, are painful to hear: some interviewees clearly struggle with drug addition and it is clear how they will spend the $50 they earned making this film, many are victims of childhood sexual abuse or parental abandonment, others suffer from the recent departure or death of loved-ones. According to the directors, paying the interviewees on-camera was contraversial when the film was shown at festivals. And to be honest, it is a truly disturbing aspect of the film. More than anything, it reminds us of the transactional nature of prostitution and makes the viewer feel like a john actively participating in this commercial enterprise. Some hustlers took the money politely and immediately tucked it away in a pocket, their underwear, or inside a sock. Some said "thank you" softly, with a sparkle in their eye. One man held his fifty dollar bill throughout his interview as though it were nothing or as if he had forgotten he was holding it. There is nothing judgmental about this film, though the directors (in their commentary) betray a sense of pity and bewilderment from time to time. They know at least some of their subjects are in serious trouble. But watching the film with the commentary feature turned off, the lack of overall perspective or point-of-view is frustrating. A piece of me wanted either to hear a puritanical tsk-tsk or a full-blown defense of the world's oldest profession. (Either would have been fine with me.) But I suspect the flat amorality of the film is ultimately the most accurate reflection of what these men experience on a daily basis and made for the most honest approach on the part of the filmmakers. Concerning the DVD extras, there are a number of unedited interview segments that were very interesting (such as the defense of prositution by one young man based on his pagan beliefs). The Directors' Commentary is somewhat difficult to follow at times because the soundtrack of the film is completely turned off. Without knowing what the hustlers are saying, it's hard to know what the directors are reacting to. A good post-production sound engineer, I believe, could have skillfully interwoven the two soundtracks.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Occasionally Sexy, Often Disturbing, Always Thought Provoking, October 29, 2006
Over the course of two years, producers and directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato interviewed one hundred two male prostitutes who worked in West Hollywood, exploring their backgrounds, private lives, and attitudes toward their work and paying each fifty dollars for their time. Edited together around certain themes with the occasional more detailed profile of certain individuals, the result was 101 RENT BOYS. It was and remains extremely controversial.
The central controversy involved arises from the fact that, at least to a certain extent, 101 RENT BOYS can be considered deliberately exploitive. The explotational edge is apparent in the title itself, which implies a certain sexiness; in that interviews are conducted in various hotel rooms which might be used by prostitutes and clients; in that the filmmakers have no qualm in encouraging their subjects to drape suggestively across bed; in that the filmmakers pay their subjects and very deliberately photograph the subjects accepting the money. By doing so, Bailey and Barbato essentially make both themselves and the viewer complicit in an act of prostitution. The irony is that in most instances the act of prostitution is not so much physical--nor can it be; we are distanced by film--than it is both spiritual and psychological. We are not paying for physical touch but for the right to invade the mind of the subjects in ways they would not normally give a client. The result is often unsettling, to say the least, particularly when one considers that Bailey and Barbato apparently have no problem in engaging in it.
No less so are the various subjects. The majority of the men involved are essentially street hustlers who have been recruited from Santa Monica Boulevard, men who range in age from their early twenties to late thirties; some are remarkably handsome; some are distinctly haggard. They tend to share backgrounds of physical abuse as children and current drug abuse. Even so, they are remarkably diverse and often very articulate and occasionally unexpectedly clear-eyed about their profession and the toll it takes on their lives. A handful are clearly upscale in nature, far removed from the streets; these tend to regard their work as less a matter of a life style into which they drifted than as a business they often enjoy.
Now and then certain individuals pop with their extremes. Perhaps the most disturbing is a man who enjoys physical pain, almost casually putting out a cigarette on his chest (and later and quite shockingly putting out a cigarette on another part of his body) in demonstration of his thought that "pain is good." Another goes through an emotional wringer as he describes his separation from his long-term lover; one is a gang member who announces he enjoys working as a prostitute much more than he liked being shot at; and several describe girl friends and children.
In many respects the men are indeed what you might expect, but in each instance they show, perhaps unintentionally, their humanity. They are indeed considerably more than the flesh and bone rented for a few hours by their customers. They are human beings and much, much more like the "average man" than they are different--a realization that adds to the film's uneasiness and which is, indeed, the ultimate point of the whole thing.
As a documentary, however, the film has two very distinct flaws. The least obvious of these is the fact that the prostitutes are selling more than their bodies: they are selling illusions, fantasies, and dreams. This is pointed out by more than one subject, and it has implications in terms of how much of their statements we can believe--but the film never really follows this up in any statement-making sense. The most obvious flaw is that it is in some ways superficial; the subjects are taken at their word and that is that, there is no real context and ultimately nothing we can describe as "cold reality." Both flaws feed into each other and tend to create a "how much of this can we truly believe?" quality.
The DVD issue comes with several bonuses. The Bailey and Barbato audio commentary track is interesting, but it may not be interesting in quite the way either man desired; they spend a fair amount of time talking about the sexiness of their various subjects. They also note that one of the original "101 Rent Boys" turned out to be underage, thus forcing them to an additional inteview, but that only one hundred men actually appear in the film due to the fact that one subject later rescinded conscent. It is also tremendously annoying in the sense that the sound mix is bad: the film audio is mute throughout, and it is impossible to know what soundbyte from the film they are actually talking about at any given moment. There are several unedited interviews, which are interesting in and of themselves, and there are the "three minutes alone" segments, in which subjects were give time alone with the camera to say or do whatever they desired. Needless to say, a few of them elected to "do" rather than "say."
As a whole, and in spite of several very obvious and annoying flaws, 101 RENT BOYS is a very interesting film, always thought provoking. If you are looking for something mindlessly sexy, however, you will be out of luck--and I cannot imagine that it will appeal to the people who, rather ironically, would benefit most from seeing it. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Riveting Look At "Intimacy As A Commodity", February 16, 2007
When I was a kid, for some reason I was really into the movie Where the Day Takes You - that glossy, glamorized Hollywood account of homelessness and (to some degree) hustling. I think a lot of it stemmed from my urge (and some half-hearted attempts) to run away myself. Regardless, I sometimes thought about what life as a hustler would "really" be like.
So when I heard about this movie, I was very intrigued. And now that I've finally gotten to see it, I would definitely say it is as close as I've come to a real account of the life of a hustler, without my having much personal/experiential knowledge of the actual scene itself.
Granted, the "observer effect" certainly comes into question in this doc (more than most, it seems), so we can never be sure if the person being interviewed is playing to the camera or even just making things up (after all, they are talking about illegal activities - and not only sex, but drug use and, in one sensationalistic case, bank robbery). Most of the names are pseudonyms, and almost every guy seems like he's lying about his age.
But my cinematic cynicism aside (which could just be my own perceptual baggage), I felt that this was a compelling, sometimes thrilling, oftentimes painful and sad depiction of many lives spent turning tricks. It's certainly not a glamorous account, that's for sure (one man ruefully reflects, "To my knowledge, I'm the only one who got out from that time period. So... I'm the lucky one").
And while there's undoubtedly a voyeuristic element to all of this (again, more than in most documentaries) and there's nudity and the topic revolves around sex, this film is more of a psychological document than it is a sexual one (as another man says at the beginning, "I thought I was gonna hafta come here and have sex or something. But instead I'm just exposing myself on television - I don't know what's worse").
Indeed, self-reflection never comes cheap (why do you think psychologists charge so much per hour?). One leather-clad gentleman sums it up perfectly: "I feel kind of naked because I'm looking at this aspect of my life for the first time."
Such is the world of "intimacy as a commodity" (as one hustler puts it), and this is as intimate a look at this world as one is likely to get without personally being a part of it.
(and a final word of caution: if you think this review is too wordy, then definitely don't get this movie. Because this film is mostly made of words; there's a whole lot of talking. It genuinely is like getting an adult magazine just to read the articles)
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