52 Films by Women Vol 10. 21. TRULY NAKED (Director: Muriel D’Ansembourg)
The writer-director
Muriel D’Ansembourg wastes no time in establishing the set-up. Father Dylan
(Andrew Howard) is having sex with a female model who wears gold body paint,
clearly exercising his Shirley Eaton (from Goldfinger) sex
fantasy, while his son Alec (Caolán O’Gorman) is recording. Dylan compliments Alec
on his work. Nobody does it better (to quote another James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me). Alec is both professional and empathetic –
he cares about the women who appear in the videos. Pornographic films put food
on the table and some other things too (of the prosthetic variety).
Mum first appeared
in Dylan’s films several years ago – that’s how they met, less meet cute than
cute meat. She has long since left the family. Alec explains to Nina that he
was first exposed to pornography at the age of five, seeing his father at work.
At what point he joined the crew isn’t made explicit – unlike little else – but
what son doesn’t like doing stuff with his old man? It becomes clear that Alec is
suppressing his sexuality. He is nervous around Nina – and she notices.
The assignment is
just a McGuffin. The pair don’t do much research, though a vintage braille
version of Playboy magazine makes an appearance. You imagine that Alec and Nina
don’t pretend to understand Norman Mailer’s reportage – associated with the
magazine – and that’s par for the course. What is post-Hemingway machismo
malaise anyway? With neither of them being able to study in the other’s home, Nina
takes Alec to her ‘woman cave’, which is a vast open space with not much
shelter from the wind. She rides a motorcycle and offers Alec a helmet.
Nina’s mother is a life coach. She only hires women to carry
out tasks around the house (plumbing, decorating, etc). ‘Positive
discrimination,’ Nina calls it. Alec is impressed, though he doesn’t ask what
scores they get on Trust Pilot. Her mother is big on exercises involving one
untrusted party walking towards the other. Ten steps away is fine. Eight steps
okay. Six steps you can handle. Four steps, you feel the person’s breath. Two
steps, you wobble.
Both Nina and Alec attend a semi-private college, with the
name suggesting Bright Spark. It’s hyphenated, which implies day care rather
than an education facility. There’s a boy in Alec’s class who really wanted to join
his assignment. He ‘pervs’ over it, giving Alec a cigarette in exchange for
details. Do you watch pornography with Nina? Does she get aroused? Do you get
aroused when she gets aroused? And so on. You expect the teen to turn into one
of the ‘suit’s you’ gentlemen played by Mark Williams and Paul Whitehouse in
TV’s The Fast Show. When Alec walks away, his new friend demands
more for his tobacco, which is fair given the cost. The boys scuffle.
Alec is no snitch. When he is brought before the Head
Teacher (Juliet Aubrey) he downplays the incident. Then she rings Dylan. He can
barely muster the strength to speak on the phone – a side effect from the
Cialis he ingests, I expect. At any rate, after a brief interruption – Nina has
also been sent to the Head Teacher for wearing a provocative tee-shirt (the
word ‘vagina’ contravenes the uniform code, though otherwise the Head is
impressed) – Alec’s father falls asleep. ‘I’ll call him later,’ the Head Teacher
adds, sending Nina to change into one of the unclaimed blouses in the abandoned
property collection. Nina finds one that fits, insisting Alec turn away while
she gets changed.
Inevitably, Nina meets Dylan. Dropping Alec off on her
motorcycle, she has need of the bathroom. She also meets Dylan’s most frequent
collaborator, Lizzie (Alessa Savage) who offers her first dibs on her tee-shirt
collection. Lizzie is quick to explain that she feels accepted working in porn.
‘What woman doesn’t hide her feelings, nodding along even though she disagrees?’
She challenges Nina’s feminism. Nina should ‘walk the walk’ or rather put on a
pair of knickers with a strap-on attached and invite Alec’s father to suck it.
Pictured: 'You hungry? I've got soup.' Dylan (Andrew Howard), a father who makes home videos recorded by his teenage son, in a scene from the coming-of-age drama, 'Truly Naked', written and directed by Muriel D'Ansembourg. Still courtesy of Paradiso Films (Netherlands)
Before this moment, in which Dylan’s reluctance to ingest a penis is tested, the young couple run into problems. In intimate situations, Alec cannot look at Nina’s face. Nina describes herself as having no need for pornography – she prefers to exercise her sexuality with a live specimen – although she doesn’t want to go all the way. Eventually, she allows Alec to get close, but he keeps looking down instead of up and ejaculates in her face, a sequence tastefully staged by D’Ansembourg. At school, Nina ignores Alec until he invites her to undertake the trust exercise. ‘Two step’ authentication fails.
Dylan doesn’t make Alec’s life easy, bringing Lizzie to
school with him for his appointment with the Head Teacher. Lizzie isn’t one for
waiting in the car. Other students see her and point. The teen’s tormentor
discovers Dylan’s work and shows it to both Alec and Nina.
Nina isn’t that judgmental. She also lives in a one-parent
household, her father currently working in Morocco. For all his father’s
efforts, Alec lives in a no-parent household. ‘Who’s hungry?’ Dylan asks at one
point. ‘I’ve got soup.’
Even by his standards, Dylan crosses the line, firstly with
a new young model whom he met in the chemist’s. Maybe they got their
prescriptions mixed up, a ‘treat cute’, if you will. The young woman isn’t
vocal in front of the camera, neither experiencing nor expressing pleasure. Alec
tries to make her comfortable as well as compositionally interesting. He
suggests photographing her face while Dylan arouses her according to her
direction, the young woman having indicated her erogenous zones. This provokes Dylan’s
‘I’m not making art, I’m making porn’ speech, which causes the young woman to
leave, not before calling Dylan a lousy lay. She insists on being paid. Dylan refuses.
Alec gives her ‘fifteen euros’, which is odd because why would the young woman
want them in England? Even when in Europe, the UK kept the pound. After she
leaves, Alec locks himself in his room. Later Dylan slides £20 under the door. Alec
rips it in half and shoves it back to him.
However, there is a greater infraction. Not content with
going into the ‘fake dildo’ business (£50 a pop), Dylan purchases a live
octopus. This is another James Bond reference - Octopussy anyone?
This time, Dylan coaxes Lizzie to participate in a sticky threesome. The result
is not only unpornographic but hazardous to Lizzie’s health. One of the
octopus’ tentacles becomes attached in an unpleasant way. Alec is appalled.
Later, he discovers the octopus in the bath. He pledges never to work with his
father again.
The film has one problem to address: whether Alec can
overcome his intimacy issue. In the film’s most contrived scene, he and Nina
share a moment in his bedroom. The camera is left on and records them. Alec and
Nina review the footage, though whether they erase it isn’t clear. Then Alec
places the camera at a distance. We see, through the lens, Alec reaching for
the button, as if to switch it off.
Reviewed at Zaal 6, Pathé Buitenhof, Den Haag, The Netherlands, Wednesday 13 May 2026, 13:20 ‘Boutique’ Screening, with a twelve-minute intermission (‘Pauze’)
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