I Am a Sex Addict. Review.

Update: Gary Meyer, programmer at the Balboa Theater, where Sex Addict will be opening in San Francisco on Friday, passes along good news and a sharp word in a comment below. Very pleased to hear that the Elmwood will open the film in Berkeley.

Subversion in cinema starts when the theatre darkens and the screen lights up. For the cinema is a place of magic where psychological and environmental factors combine to create an openness to wonder and suggestion, an unlocking of the unconscious. It is a shrine at which modern ritual rooted in atavistic memories and subconscious desires are acted out in darkness and seclusion from the outer world.

Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art

Most of Caveh Zahedi's docu-drama films start in the same way, with an on-screen quote and Caveh's personal statement addressed directly to the camera. There's a quote above, and a personal statement to follow. I knew Caveh before I saw any of his feature-length films. I had seen clips here and there, and Tripping with Caveh in its entirely, and I was wary. Arriving at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in January of 2005, Jonathan Marlow and I had already decided to see Sex Addict there, where it later became a hit with audiences. I was nervous to find that Caveh and his wife Mandy were at the theater because I expected I would really dislike his film. It's incredibly hard to lie to Caveh because the only thing he really seems to demand, even in an acquaintance, is honesty. In conversation he's very quick to catch you in a half-truth, and he doesn't let go.

Towards the end of the first section of Sex Addict, which deals with Caveh's first marriage and his initial entry into prostitute addiction, he says, "I had hoped that being completely honest would bring us closer together. But I had seriously miscalculated." For me, and I can say this with certainty now that I've seen almost all of his films, this is a key comment on Caveh's relationship with his audience. There are people out there who really appreciate honesty. But there are also people who prefer to delve into the unconscious via the mediation of style. Why do we like film noir so much? Or Alfred Hitchcock? Or Dalí? In subversive art, sometimes it's the form that's subverted, sometimes the content itself is subversive, and sometimes it's both. But purely confessional films can be especially trying, regardless of whether or not the confessor is being entirely honest. Many of the confessional/diary films of New York in the late 60s and 70s, for example, seem in retrospect ego-driven and self-indulgent. Caveh's films thus far have been confessional, and all except for his first feature, A Little Stiff, perhaps tellingly co-directed by Greg Watkins, have centered on Caveh's direct speeches to the camera and his earnest determination to analyze himself and his relationship to the universe. Some audience members are awed by his willingness to confront his own ego. Others are bored by what seems to be a rambling group therapy session.

Sex Addict is a breakthrough for Caveh because it's accessible, and there's nothing wrong with that. Who would have thought, considering its title? It's almost as if, instead of listening in on his raw therapy session, we're hearing the same stories post-therapy, re-crafted as an engaging, funny anecdote. Instead of taking himself too seriously, he's able to laugh at himself, and to bring the audience along, and that encourages a willingness to go on the trip. This may be a move of desperation on Caveh's part, having realized that his earlier attempts at filmmaking have not garnered the success for which he may have hoped. And before you go off on the what-is-success-anyway tangent, bear in mind that in his previous films Caveh has confessed his desire to win big awards and be liked by famous people. He especially wants to make good films that people can appreciate.

Just because I Am a Sex Addict is accessible doesn't mean it's any less potent as a work of subversive cinema. As the lights dim, we are taken into Caveh's somewhat linear retelling of his long-time addiction to prostitutes and his eventual recovery with the help of Sex Addicts Anonymous. Its form is the shape of memory. Memory is a shifting temporal force. It isn't really linear and it relies, to a certain extent, on the vagaries of recollection. It's a lot like that old quantum physics idea of a knot. You take a piece of thread and roll it around in your palms for a few seconds until it's a ball. The thread is now touching itself in various places, like pieces of time, and you can step from one moment to another. Caveh jumps around from recreations of his youth, to Super 8 footage of his real youth, to the present; from a reenactment of casting the actress to play his first wife, to the actual reenactments, to learning in the present that the actress is actually a porn star, to footage of his real-life ex-wife. Unlike Hollywood, which tries to tell us that the fantasy we're seeing is real, Sex Addict is honest about its dishonesties. But it's also true to the nature of memory, which is almost a dream state.

Then there's the content. Even these days it's a taboo subject. Caveh's not just addicted to sex, he's addicted to fulfilling his most illogical misogynistic fantasies. He doesn't just want to sleep with prostitutes, he wants to demean and dominate them. Odd, considering that the women he wants to subject to shame really couldn't care less. It's his real-life relationships he's actually demeaning. But the fact that Caveh is willing to share all of this with an audience is perhaps the most shocking part of it all. I would guess that a lot of people have some repressed fantasies that make them feel a little ashamed. That they can rise above them is perhaps to their credit. But acknowledging that they exist is also important.

This can't help but raise a few feminist questions - especially since Caveh has considered himself one. It could be argued that feminism right now is in serious trouble. You can't leaf through a magazine these days without running across some article about educated women who really just want to stay home and take care of the kids or about smart teenagers dressing like porn stars and giving blowjobs in the corners of darkened nightclubs. We even have pole dancing exercise classes and stripping competitions. The question is, which comes first, men like Caveh whose primal sexual fantasies involve the whorification of women, or women's unconscious fantasies of domination by men? Caveh at least finds a way to facilitate his own recovery. He is also willing to stand back, analyse his addiction and face up to its destructive force in his life. How many women are willing to acknowledge and change their own self-destructive tendencies? The feminism movement was empowering, but now that it's stumbling, how are we going get the support we need to step forward?

Maybe I'm digressing (then again, maybe not). Sex Addict really has more to do with Caveh's own overarching selfishness than larger topics. The women in his life act amazingly well in the face of his infidelities, much better than he does to their own shortcomings. And each relationship serves to highlight some of the inherent differences between the sexes. Though Caveh comes off as unattractive at times, he ultimately doesn't like those parts of himself and follows through on his wish to change them. It's a tragi-comedy that brings redemptive tears to the eyes; one where everyone lives tolerably ever after.

Many filmmaker interviews end with a question about future projects. I have foregone an interview to write a selfish personal essay, and will end it according to suit. These are the next projects I would like to see from Caveh. First and foremost, a narrative adaptation of Dave Eggers's You Shall Know Our Velocity. I honestly cannot think of a better filmmaker to do this. Then, perhaps, if for the thematics alone, Nick Hornby's How to be Good.

Posted by dwhudson at April 4, 2006 12:48 AM