Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (1999)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Gough Lewis

Release Date:

11 February 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Pornography | Porn Industry | Behind The Scenes | Hardcore | Pornography Documentary

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Annabel Chong	...	Herself
John T. Bone	...	Himself
Ed Powers	...	Himself
Dr. Walter Williams	...	Himself (Prof. of Anthropology, USC)
Charles Conn	...	Himself (friend / classmate)
Dick James	...	Himself (president, Annabel Chong Fan Club)
Monica Moran	...	Herself (friend / classmate)
Steve Austin	...	Himself (talent agent, World Modeling Agency)
Jim South	...	Himself (Owner, World Modeling Agency / porn directr)
Al Goldstein	...	Himself
Ron Jeremy	...	Himself
Lanisha Shanthi Easter	...	Herself (friend / former lover)
Mr. Quek	...	Himself (father)
Mrs. Quek	...	Herself (mother)
Allenina W.	...	Herself (as Allen Wong)

Runtime:

Australia:86 min | France:85 min | Japan:86 min | UK:86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Iceland:16 | Australia:R | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Hong Kong:III | South Korea:18 (original rating) (cut version) | South Korea:Limited (re-release) (uncut version) | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Benjamin Sheares Bridge, Singapore

Company:

Coffee House Films

Trivia:

The event was halted early due to concerns over the rough treatment Annabel was receiving.

Quotes:

Robert Black: Put a police officer right here, and you have a girl right here, and have me say, "Will you suck my dick for $50?" and she says, "Yeah," they'll arrest us because that's prostitution and that's a pimp. But because we have this camera here, "We're gonna make a movie now. You're gonna suck my dick and I'm gonna give you $50. We're gonna make a porno," and that's legal.

Movie Connections:

Features World's Biggest Gang Bang 2 (1996) (V)

or, the rise and fall of Grace Quek.

For about half its length, ANNABEL CHONG is a bright, light, unexpected, vibrant, witty documentary. Annabel Chong is Grace Quek, a Singapore-raised English anthropology student at the University of South California, who became a porn actress after an unenlightened feminist tutorial, as an expression of sexual freedom. She became famous in 1995 when she broke the world record for sleeping with the most men (251 in ten hours), and became a fixture on programmes like THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW.

Grace herself is a very likeable, seemingly together young woman, with the teeth of Goldie and the accent of Jane Seymour, who decides to become a 'stud' to critique masculinity. She seems in complete control of her career and her image, and, as her world record is revealed straight away, there is no conventionally contrived documentary 'success'.

The film is sharply funny as it explores the strangely haphazard and hugely lucrative pornography industry. Many of its denizens, with amusingly childishly suggestive names, find Annabel's antics distasteful and degrading, confirming the image of sleaze the constant display of computers are trying to conceal. The marketing men are either aging, pony-tailed relics who are easy to laugh at, or the younger, can't-quite-believe-their-luck jocks who can't stop giggling.

Unfortunately things become more sinister as the pressure begins to tell on Annabel. She is quite clearly not in control, and the film constantly undermines her claims to independence, as she dances for a bunch of slavering perverts. These latter don't care what incomprehensible post-structuralist jargon comes out of her mouth, as long as she delivers the goods. In fact, this feminist liberation goes beyond their wildest dreams - a woman who is actually looking to them for it.

This we might have expected, but more repulsive revelations begin to leak out. Not only do we assume that she is tacitly forced into the event by leeches who can see a sucker from a mile off, but she isn't paid, she is quickly abandoned for an even more photogenic cash-cow, and most horrific of all, we discover that the health and safety standards for the event were criminally lax.

This becomes a deeply and properly misanthropic film in which, I think, the filmmakers, if I may say so under IMDb guidelines, collude. Produced and directed by men, the film is formally weighted against Annabel. The more images and 'reality' contradict Annabel, the less we listen to her voice, the more we listen to others, squeezing her out. Music (for instance the repetition of 'Amazing Grace') is used to ironise Annabel, and there are a number of occasions when the film's ethics are seriously in question, and not just the obvious contrivances of many scenes.

Little 'narratives' are slipped into the story (eg does Annabel have AIDS?). In one, she hasn't yet told her mother, and the film uses this very private and damaging dilemma to generate suspense. Frequently, Annabel doesn't seem to be in control, and yet the filmmakers watch her slashing her wrists so they can offer a neat thesis on different penetrations of the body. The film is careful to record the different groups of men who use and belittle Annabel (TV shows, the porn industry, her old teachers, Cambridge students etc.), but don't seem to notice their own culpability.

The film becomes seriously depressing , and while it is quite right to give an audience lured by the sensationalist title a shock, a play with gender identity, a critique of filmmaking itself, the filmmakers seem to have crossed a line, where they have become as exploitative as the porn producers. In one scene they revisit the site of a rape; in another they gang up with us and an informed teacher on an unknowing Annabel. The frequent shots from outside looking in invoke a voyeuristic model, and maybe the documentary is intensely self-aware, but the increasingly moralistic drive is only at the expense of Annabel Chong.