Café Flesh, A Review (An X-Rated Art Film)

 

Café Flesh was released to VHS in 1982. It is in fact hard core porn. That is to say, you see penetration. To be honest, porn has not had me interested, let alone turned on in over 20 years. I generally find it to be super dull, and unrealistic to an extreme. But there is a level of reality in the sex of the older porn movies. They did not loop them to make it look like the guy lasted 15 minutes going hard, instead it was normal paced and did not last a log time.

The movie is in fact an art film of sorts. There is a lot of theatrical elements to it and the setting is to say the least Noir. The action is very Avant Guard. The way the stage performances are put together is very much not like a normal stage show. They are highly stylized and for the most part done with exaggerated acting (very campy).

The music is a hole different thing as well. Other than the opening theme (that sucked), the music is a wonder to hear. It can only be descried as an electronic jazz style with serious New York club influences from the 1980's. The beat is not driving, but instead it is carried with the jazzy flow of the music and the energy it produces in the listener.

The story of this movie is that there has been an atomic war, and now there is not much left of the world. What is left of humanity is 99% sex negative. This is to say, the touch of another human makes them violently sick and thus they can no longer have sex, let alone make out or just hug even.

The 1% left are the sex positive. These people are not afflicted with the terrible fate of the rest of humanity. However, life for them is not all that great either. The positive people are forced by a government agency call the enforcers to have sex on stage in these very artistic performances.

The main couple are very much different people. The man is rather bleak and pretends not to care about the shows, and to be repulsed by them. The reality is that all the negative people are drawn to watch these shows in a torture like experience, where they get turned on deeply, but can't do anything about it.

The woman is an outgoing personality that sees life as a joy and she is brimming with a happy nature. There is something she is hiding. Something that at the end of the movie, makes it a combination of a dream scape like experience and a nightmare of epic proportions at the same time.

To set the scene, the Café is in a bunker with a safe door you would see in a bank for the only entry way. The door is maned by a guy with an ironic name and he's kind of a jerk to say the least. The stage announcer is also a power tripping jerk who never passes up an opportunity to make the lives of the patrons a bit worse with his mockery. He has a secret you find out late in the movie - a tragic secret. There are two mutants at the door taking the things that are traded in order to get into the venue. The paraformers are very typical looking of the actors in the 1980's movie scene. There are also several characters who have strange personality types or physical features. There are very few sets in this movie and the vast majority of the film is in the small Café.

This is a medium to low budget film that some would consider a B film. However it is a true work of art and comes off like nothing you have ever seen in the realm of porn. I would recommend it highly. It is however hard to find.

IMDB has it at 6.2/10. I however am giving this masterpiece a 9/10.

On a side note, this is the first time in over 20 years that I've been turned on by porn, and it did a good job of that.