Anyone for harpaxophilia? How about somnophilia? In five intertwined mini-romcoms, a scorching summer heatwave intensifies the very particular desires of a collection of Madrid lovers. A major hit at the Spanish box office.
Kiki, Love to Love is sexy, daring, transgressive, brightly colored and often very funny, mixing up its five interwoven stories of people enjoying – and suffering – their sexual fetishes.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2017
Kiki, Love to Love 2016
Kiki, el amor se hace
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| Aug 23 | |
Born under the sign of Almodóvar, though not so supple in its parsing of perversity, Paco León’s homeland hit finds comedy and a little pathos in the mismatched sexual kinks of a group of interconnected Spaniards. Paco (director León) and Ana, for example, work on reigniting their passion by visiting bondage parties and furry nightclubs – and find themselves igniting unexpected passions in others. Natalia, meanwhile, discovers after getting mugged that she has a case of harpaxophilia, helpfully explained on-screen as “sexual arousal being produced by being robbed with violence,” while José learns he has somnophilia, sexual pleasure caused by watching someone sleep. If you caught a whiff of the non-consensual in any of this, it may or may not encourage you to learn that in this film’s sunny view of gratification, nobody ends up feeling used.
A remake of the Australian sex comedy, The Little Death, it could hardly differ more in spirit, transposing the action to a sweltering Madrid and celebrating difference, its message never more sweetly displayed than when a hearing-impaired call centre worker (fetish: silk) helps a voiceless customer indulge his fantasies through a phone sex line.