Sex: The Annabel Chong Story (1999)

Sad portrait of Annabel Chong, real name Grace Quek, a student a USC who became briefly famous for sleeping with 251 men in a 10 hours. A warts and all portrait this is the tale of a woman who got into porn as a way of empowering herself and then found she was not as in control as she thought. Its not a matter of grand tragedy, more quiet desperation. (Eventually she leaves the business only to return a year later.) Its not a happy film. I know Chong was happy with the film and made appearances when the film played around the country. Is it worth seeing? I don't know. Its not bad, but its not compelling. In its way it cautionary tale is almost cliché. The choice is yours.

I actually have not seen this documentary, but would like to add that anyone who thinks this movie is good as porn or useful for masturbating is apparently forgetting that this is a DOCUMENTARY. From most people's comments though, this movie is a good at leaving questions to be answered from the viewer about her life, what's going on in her mind and a further look at what goes on in this business. And it's also important to take a better look at Annabel Chong herself, and not treat her like some passionless, worthless porn star who should shut up and only provide masturbating material and label her opinions as "pretentious" and "neo-feminist." That just proves the validity in her wanting to change the "slut" stereotype. If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Chong, you'll actually discover that she's well read and smart, earning a scholarship to study law in London. She also went to graduate school studying a few subjects, one of them being feminist studies. So you can see her thoughts aren't just coming from nowhere. And even if she didn't go to school...women DO have thoughts and opinions that are valid. Crazy, I know. If I get the chance, I would like to see the documentary after reading material from the link above; she sounds very interesting and she was at least someone who tried to turn things around. But alas, ignorance rules...

Half way into this movie I began asking myself why I should care about Anabel Chong. I've seen several documentaries on the Porn industry and this is certainly not one of the better ones. It reveals little about the industry itself and yet it also fails to deliver anything more than a superficial glimpse into the world of Anabel Chong. Anabel is at once proud and defiant about her gang bang and yet deeply ashamed and embarrassed - to the point where she tearfully begs her mother for forgiveness and lies to her old teachers about her profession. Yet little light is shed on this contradiction.There are several scenes which, in and of themselves, sparkle, but they are lost in a film that has little structure and constantly struggles just to have a point.

The porn star Annabel Chong prepares for her part in the world record gang bang. This documentary examines her roots in the business and follows her before and after the shoot to find out why she's doing porno and what her background is. We see her as a real complex person who is seemingly unsure of what her motivations are for doing the work she does.The `porn documentary' is an area that is becoming more popular as porn becomes more mainstream. I have seen several – some that aim to just have a laugh (The Legend of Ron Jeremy) and some that are brutally honest (Hardcore). This was one of the first I'd seen and I wasn't sure what the agenda was behind it. For the most part I don't think the makers had any aim but to be honest but fair. This takes us to Chong herself as this is a look at her rather than a look at the business she's in.Chong changes her story during the film. For some of it she is a porn star who is doing it because it's `the ultimate ego trip' to have all these men wanting to have sex with her. Then we find out more about her teenage gang rape and the whole porn stuff looks different. Later however she lost my vote when she appeared at a Cambridge Uni debate and on channel 4's The Girly Show (that height of political debate) talking about how it was `a p*ss take on the whole western ideal of masculinity' and similar pretentious sounding remarks. That's fine if what you're doing is art, but porn is not art. If you are in any doubt her Cambridge debate is preceded by her boasting about loving anal sex and her pride at doing triple penetration – how very Van Gogh!She comes off very mixed up. At times very reasonable and normal, others very OTT and really into getting f*cked by as many guys as she can then at others we see her tearful confession to her mother and see her slicing up her arm with a knife just so that she can `really feel something'. It's hard to know how to feel about her because she doesn't seem to know who she is and why she's doing the things she does. For the most part the film just about manages to remain tasteful. It doesn't focus on the sex scenes and tries to have plenty of character study rather than whacking material. However it does use a lot of clips and stuff that don't add to the message but really only serve to spice things up. Some of the scenes have a reason – for example the gang bang scenes are in no way erotic and are slightly like watch meat being processed, and Chong has a weird smile the whole time. But some from the start of her career are just there to show off breasts and ass! The only good bit about following her early work is the interviews with directors like John T Bone, Ed Powers, Dick Nasty (here as `Richard'), Ron Jeremy and Robert Black. They don't give much insight into the business but it is clear they don't give much weight to Chong's idea that this is a social comment. In fact they are the first to point out how she was exploited – with many of the performers not having had AIDS tests, and also Chong not getting rich from her day's work.This is a little hard to take. I watched Hardcore where we see Dick Nasty as an agent for an English girl – pressuring her into things she didn't want to do. So to hear him take the high ground is a little daft. Robert Black is a regular for documentaries and he always make sense because he is honest about porn – `it's f*cking shameful and nasty' he says in `Hardcore' but he does enjoy his work!Overall this isn't a look at porn but a look at Chong and on that level it isn't great. How can we get who she is when she isn't clear on that herself? It's interesting viewing and slightly depressing to see a woman who is so clearly exploited claiming the artistic high ground, and also seeing someone who is so intelligent (she passes her degree) constantly going back to work in porn. A bit of a muddle but a compelling world to dip into for 90 minutes.......but not any longer than that, thank God.