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THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
Directed by: Kirby Dick.
Produced by: Eddie Schmidt.
Directors of Photography: Shana Hagan, Kirsten Johnson & Amy Vincent.
Edited by: Matthew Clarke.
Released by: IFC Films.
Country of Origin: USA. 97 min. Not Rated.

In a sneak attack, documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick (Oscar-nominated for Twist of Faith) gleefully pounces on the Kremlin-like Motion Picture Association of America, whose here-to-now anonymous ratings board (supposedly composed of parents) have sat in judgment since 1968. Serious minded (but with a wink and a nod), this very film was deemed NC-17 by the MPAA, a fact that is just one of its surreal moments.

To get raters’ names, Dick hires private investigator Becky Altringer. Armed with binoculars, she and her assistant sit in her parked car on a side street behind the MPAA’s impenetrable headquarters in Encino, California. Tracing identities through license plate numbers, Dick discovers only one of the raters actually has teenage children. And going through the trash outside a rater’s home, Dick and Altringer find specific notes on Memoirs of a Geisha and Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

Dick’s interest is in the here and now, offering only a skimpy history of censorship and the films that pushed the envelope. Anyone following entertainment news won’t be surprised by the board’s moralistic stance toward sexually-charged material over the last 25 years or so. In an attempt to bridge the R and the X rating, the NC-17 rating was born upon the release of Henry & June, Philip Kaufman’s not-so-sexy triangle of writers Anais Nin, Henry Miller, and his wife, June. That rating became instantly obsolete when Blockbuster refused to stock NC-17 titles and newspapers to run their advertisements. Although it is left unsaid, it now seems inconceivable that a film initially rated X, Midnight Cowboy, could ever win best picture (though Jane Fonda’s loooong orgasm from Coming Home is given its props).

Academic issues of artistic freedom aside, Dick’s film humorously makes the point of the MPAA’s loathing of sexual pleasure through a frenzied montage of various sex scenes, including an interracial romp in Todd Solondz’s Storytelling (with a red triangle covering the actors’ naughty bits, which Solondz added in order to receive an R, as opposed to the stigmatizing NC-17). Mimicking a rater’s notes, a tally in the corner of the screen keeps count of the pelvic thrusts (I lost count). And bringing new meaning to the term “mockumentary,” the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” accompanies a profile of former MPAA honcho Jack Valenti. But Joan Graves, the chairwoman of the ratings board, never appears on camera, only via a phone call and in cartoon form, bags under the eyes and all. You could call the film, “The Revenge of the Director.”

To challenge a rating, filmmakers may present their case to a – again anonymous – appeals board. Dick learns the hard knocks of the process firsthand after submitting this very film to the board and receiving the dreaded rating. Not only can a director not mention previous MPAA precedent, but he or she may be cut off from speaking by the MPAA’s attorney without any further recourse. It’s hard not to feel that Dick is uncovering a trade secret, or at least an embarrassment, when current and former raters come forward and appear on camera, contradicting each other on the role of clergy on the appeals board. The current member treads so carefully on egg shells it’s as if he’s afraid for his life.

As a filmmaker, Dick’s anger is justified, and his mission will most likely be strongly supported by the film’s core art house audience. Armed with his articulate supporters (The Cooler’s Maria Bello defending her patch of pubic hair and director Kimberly Peirce the bold sexuality in her Boys Don’t Cry), Dick blunts any excuse for the board’s secrecy. Director John Waters makes perhaps the film’s most salient point. Technology has vastly changed in the last 40 years; kids have seen everything by now via the Internet. What could the MPAA possibly be protecting them from? And Dick has provided an invaluable service: the inclusion of the uncut, full-on puppet sex scene from Team America: World Police. At first, expressionless inanimate objects going at it from every conceivable angle (and then some) may not seem funny, but puerile. However, the humor will hit you eventually, and hopefully not inappropriately, like at church. Kent Turner
September 1, 2006