101 Rent Boys

Rating:
Summary: Boulevard of tears (but no excuses)
Review: The filmmakers interviewed 102 hustlers (that's correct, one turned out to be underage and his contribution could not be used, so a replacement was recruited) to make this documentary. Most were street hustlers who work Santa Monica Boulevard; the others were recruited through escort services and magazine ads. Each one had an opportunity to tell his story. There is little evidence of their conversations being directed by an interviewer, though it is apparent from the directors' commentary that the monologues were for the most part respsonses to questions put to them by co-director Randy Barbato.

To prevent the film from becoming monotonous and repetitious, it was edited and assembled into seventeen chapters with titles like, "Losing It," "The First Trick," "Gay," "Straight," "Turn-ons," "Turn-offs," "Pain," "Weird [stuff]," "Drugs," and "The Future." The paucity of high-rent call boys (the directors, after all, only paid the men $50 for their one-hour videotaped interviews) prevented this film from being an unintentional glamorization of prostitution. The stories, for the most part, are painful to hear: some interviewees clearly struggle with drug addition and it is clear how they will spend the $50 they earned making this film, many are victims of childhood sexual abuse or parental abandonment, others suffer from the recent departure or death of loved-ones. According to the directors, paying the interviewees on-camera was contraversial when the film was shown at festivals. And to be honest, it is a truly disturbing aspect of the film. More than anything, it reminds us of the transactional nature of prostitution and makes the viewer feel like a john actively participating in this commercial enterprise. Some hustlers took the money politely and immediately tucked it away in a pocket, their underwear, or inside a sock. Some said "thank you" softly, with a sparkle in their eye. One man held his fifty dollar bill throughout his interview as though it were nothing or as if he had forgotten he was holding it.

There is nothing judgmental about this film, though the directors (in their commentary) betray a sense of pity and bewilderment from time to time. They know at least some of their subjects are in serious trouble. But watching the film with the commentary feature turned off, the lack of overall perspective or point-of-view is frustrating. A piece of me wanted either to hear a puritanical tsk-tsk or a full-blown defense of the world's oldest profession. (Either would have been fine with me.) But I suspect the flat amorality of the film is ultimately the most accurate reflection of what these men experience on a daily basis and made for the most honest approach on the part of the filmmakers.

Concerning the DVD extras, there are a number of unedited interview segments that were very interesting (such as the defense of prositution by one young man based on his pagan beliefs). The Directors' Commentary is somewhat difficult to follow at times because the soundtrack of the film is completely turned off. Without knowing what the hustlers are saying, it's hard to know what the directors are reacting to. A good post-production sound engineer, I believe, could have skillfully interwoven the two soundtracks.

Rating:
Summary: Some interesting content but limited dvd features
Review: With a title like 101 Rent Boys, I was expecting a wide array of interviews with a large number of men. Admittedly, including all 101 interviews would be prohibitively long, but I did expect to hear more boys than I got. Some boys were featured often, in multiple segments, while some we barely got a glimps of--of course those were the ones who I thought seemed most attractive and wanted to hear speak, and not just a quick camera pan.

As for extras, there arent many on this disk--a few extra interviews which were interesting but limited, and a directors voice over where you only hear the directors comments, and not the video soundtrack at all, making it difficult to understand what comments from the boys the directors were referring to--especially frustrating when the director says "wait, wait--here comes that comment I was referring to" and there is dead silence! That is the first time I have ever seen a glitch like that on a DVD, which made the technical quality of this DVD feel less than professional. All in all, I think of this as an interesting television documentary, but not a DVD I can recommend for ones permanent collection.