What does it mean to start your student documentary with a series of slides, quietly book-page transitioning between eachother. Wherein the director, you, points to the bathroom in your university building and annotates it with how many times you would masturbate in it during lectures? A lot to the director Li Xinyi who created the documentary Modern Masturbation Allegory.
The documentary follows the testimonies of both Chinese and British girls’ on the subject of masturbation in relation to the self. When Li interviews these girls they are given free rein to explore their personal experiences. She is forgiving and does not sensationalise or scandalise the things they say at any point. As well as this, each girl is dressed and shot in such a way that she is anonymous.
These anonymous girls are also stylised in such a way that they appear feminine, with princess bangs and cute dresses, silly large hats. The visuals are also inexplicit; jellyfish glowing, a calm velvety night as it transitions into dusk, stop-motions of a Jellycat rabbit. Occasionally there are hints at the erotic or sexual but it never dips into any kind of unabashed expository flavour. The tone remains forgiving and almost comforting. The documentary is less shock jock and more safe space, it functions as a comforting but anonymous confessional.
The score is at points a little creepy and sinister but equally as sweet and contemplative. At the beginning when the director spoke about her own experiences with a masturbation addiction, I felt as though the rest of the documentary would follow in the same tonal manner. I thought the film would focus on the detriments of addiction. But it doesn’t. It’s a strange space of deep introspection about the taboo. Like it’s almost a science project or philosophical dive into what it suggests about the person’s life as a whole.
This one made me want to interview the director so bad. Even just to talk to her more about her beliefs on the subject. I find it a deeply radical thing to make something like this for the sake of interest. Talking about the things that aren’t talked about is one act of bravery. Doing them in a manner that is tasteful rather than gratuitous I find pretty cool. Especially when the director herself was highlighting a behaviour that she could not verify against others behaviours due to taboo. A lot of the other women in their testimonies also remark on this lonely and undiscovered aspect. It adds to the strangeness of the whole concept.
Good for you Li Xinyi. I think you rock.