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DARK GARDEN (1999)
VCA DVD (region 0 NTSC)
d. Michael Ninn; pr. Jane Hamilton; scr. Michael Ninn; ph. Barry Wood; m. Loren Alexander; ed. Steven Katz; cast. Juli Ashton, Nikita, Vicca, Julian, Lisa Belle, Tyce Bune, Jamie Gillis, Mia Smiles (115 mins)
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Michael Ninn: Sexually Explicit Material from the Porn Ghetto to the Adult Arthouse
Michael Ninn is perhaps the most influential pornoteur currently working in the adult film industry.
His provocative works are foremost amongst the upscale revisionism of hardcore which gave rise to the so-called “porno chic” movement. Since his debut in Black Orchid, Ninn has worked his way through the field with consistent thematic and stylistic presence, making him now one of the established luminaries in adult cinema. Dark Garden was one of Ninn’s most highly awarded works, winning Adult Video News awards for Best Video and Best Videography (for Ninn collaborator Barry Wood). It continued Ninn’s apparent intention to bring the best aspects of mainstream cinema – plot, characterization, special effects – into the sexually explicit imagery of pornographic cinema. This hybrid of pornography and art-house cinema clearly formed a line of descent from the pioneering work of Rinse Dream in such as the classic Café Flesh and also, perhaps most remarkably, was quite prepared to allude to such mainstream films as Strange Days and Total Recall as if it were equal to them. Where most pornographic fiction with narrative ambitions still clung to the niche mentality of “adult”, Ninn’s work broke new ground in that it treated pornography as just another genre, worthy of the same attention as any other creative work, in that sense fully modernizing the initial drive behind so much “classic” and ambitious porn of the 1970s.
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Synopsis (contains spoilers)
Dark Garden embraces adult cinema, science fiction and detective noir in its stylized and complicated plot.
It is in this film that Ninn manages to integrate a complex narrative with psychologically detailed characters and the explicitness of pornography. Police investigate the strange death of a person in high society – the mayor’s son. They notice that the corpse has burns on its temples. One detective (Julian) develops a special interest in the case, arguably secreting away some evidence to support his own agenda. Meanwhile, a woman (Vicca) delivers a device to an awaiting user. The device attaches to the temples and gives the user pleasurable sexual images involving the evocation of a mysterious femme fatale (Nikita). The devices are the domain of the nefarious Jamie Gillis, who is determined to introduce a new spiritual age (that of the devil?) onto the world through the unleashing of the pornographic imagination, much to the consternation of his twin (Gillis in a dual role). Julian is also a user of this technology and indulges his desires, leading to a run in with his female partner on the force (Juli Ashton). Julian confronts Gillis, who has paid him to sweep trouble aside, and their arrangement threatens to come undone as the death of the mayor’s son was one step too far. Gillis uses his accomplices to seduce Julian, who succumbs to the allure of the femme fatale Nikita.
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Blasphemous & Ontological Repercussions of the Pornographic Imagination
In the years between his debut in Black Orchid and Dark Garden, Ninn indulged what now emerged as his dominant theme – the repercussions on affected individuals of the loosing of a pornographic imagination.
In Dark Garden he linked this to a Manichean religious allegory. Thus, the twins played by Gillis represent good and evil forces. The bad twin uses the means of modern technology to induce sexual desire which destroys the user – itself a metaphor for the cinematic inducement of explicit sexual imagery in pornography as a genre. This inherent self-reflexivity is a hallmark of Ninn, whose films, especially Dark Garden, blend the bizarrely meta-filmic with the mystical for hypnotic affect. For Ninn, pornography is an interplay of an innate sexual muse with the mechanisms of expressing and visualizing desire. Nikita here personifies this sexual muse – it is her image that the users see and fantasize about and she who finally claims the obsessive sexual desire of the men who succumb to this technology: she is the dangerous muse of pornography. In Nikita’s role in this film, Ninn perfectly applies the traditional notion of the femme fatale from film noir to his own consideration of the working out of the sexual imagination. And once again, as in Black Orchid, it is a woman who wholly embodies this sexual imagination – “woman” is the force which motivates men’s imagination and which the technology of pornography looses to ambiguous affect.
Ninn depicts a world decidedly post-legitimization of pornography, a world where the most unscrupulous of men, the bad twin, controls fantasy and hence desire by his control of the medium of its expression.
In that sense, Gillis as the bad twin is a surrogate figure for the director of pornography, hence the self-reflexive scene where Gillis uses a small digital video camera to record his agent Nikita in action as she fellates a helpless man. Such deliberate self-reflexivity saturates Dark Garden, which is replete with references to projection, both cinematic and psychological. The interplay of reality and fantasy that Ninn effortlessly blends is here the expression of the affect of a mind consumed by sexual desire as entirely fed by modern pornographic imagery. Dark Garden is thus about the seductive insidiousness of the pornographic imagination, its ability when realized and indulged to wholly consume those who fall under its spell. It is a direct and knowing riposte to those who lament the so-called morally pernicious nature of the medium. Although Ninn embraces explicitness, the context is an ambiguous musing on the nature and expression of the sexual imagination, as if as a maker of pornography he must come to terms with his own desire to make such films. This concern for his own urges as a creative artist in such a field ultimately makes Dark Garden one of the most accomplished and visionary of personal films.
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Black & White and the Dreamlike Erotic Abstraction of Stylization
The fullscreen visual transfer is clear and accomplished throughout, fully preserving what is one of the most visually exciting of films to emerge from the adult stable.
Ninn uses color and shadow to startling effect, as well as slow-motion imagery, rear-projection effects and even sepia-tone to create a highly imaginative work. His intent is trance-like and much of the film is dreamy. Penetration is again a near-mystical thing and is often deliberately drawn out. Likewise, Nikita’s looks direct into the camera during the fellatio scenes carry both a palpable sexual allure and enhance the sense of her dangerous character. Such into camera looks fully transfer the notion of the femme fatale to due pornographic explicitness and Ninn proves himself a master at achieving a deliberate and complex emotion out of one of the tropes of heterosexual porn. It is a studied deployment of explicit imagery in service of theme and of characterization. Black and white interludes are used well as are slow-motion cum shots filmed from various angles simultaneously – a trait Ninn would expand upon in much of his subsequent work. The Juli Ashton / Julian sex number is truly spectacular, passionate in its performance and lush in its layered visuals and elaborate set. The visual textures and depth achieved in this film are unique in pornography. There is a knowing concern for the control of the gaze, and women’s eyes feature prominently in makeup.
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A Trance-Techno Audioscape of Mounting Pleasure
The sound transfer is an impressive Dolby Digital stereo, the distribution of which spatially enhances the superb, hypnotic score by frequent Ninn collaborator Lauren (Loren) Alexander.
This score is a marvelous and near-continuous trance-techno beat which stands up to the best of the genre. Dialogue is effective and the score is neatly paced according to such visual tricks as slow motion. It enhances the beautiful fluidity of this remarkable movie. At times, the sounds of passion (notably of women’s passion) are interspersed into the score making it an erotic accompaniment to some hot and stylized visuals. The fusion of sight and sound is simply amongst the best and most sensorially stimulating that porn can do, demonstrating what the genre is capable of at its finest. Minor ambient details (the noise of objects coming into contact with one another) are crisp when required but it is the score that dominates here, making the film a dreamlike experience. In aural design, Dark Garden takes the expected sounds of pornography and infuses them with a trance-like hyper-reality that is both affecting and distancing. It is a deliberate mix of diegetic and extra-diegetic sound shot through with an intelligent script and decent performances, especially from veteran Gillis in his dual role. A phone conversation makes good use of an off-screen voice and the score reveals an exotic internationalism in the scenes with Asian actress Nia Smiles.
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Special Treats for DVD Collectors
There are numerous special features, making this DVD release an absolute treat for those who expect more from pornography than just sexual titillation.
There is a jump-to-a-scene option, brief cast profiles (of Nikita, Vicca, Ashton and Smiles) and an interview with director Ninn as he talks of the resources available in the adult film industry, the pride he takes in his work, working with performers (especially Nikita) and the seductive music track. There is also a photo gallery, previews of other Ninn films – Cashmere, Forever Knight and Ritual – and an alternate angle option for several scenes. A brief behind-the-scenes documentary offers a look at the actors between takes and features input from producer Jane Hamilton and star Jamie Gillis as well as mention of the sets and set design process. In addition to distributor contact details is a commentary track by Nikita and the film’s technical director. This covers the visual techniques used in the film (rear projection especially), the co-ordination of the sex scenes and the difficulty male performers face in porn performances. Also referenced is the use of sets leftover from an HBO movie and Nikita mentions why she looks at the camera the way she does. It is an enthusiastic and constant commentary track, discussing Ninn’s style and the back-story of the performers. There is much praise for Gillis and for the film’s script. Discussed also is the use of multiple angles and film speeds.
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Dark Garden
