Trying to Watch as Many of the Films I Blind Bought This Year Before the Year Ends 2Hippy Porn, directed by Jon Moritsugu, 1991
Hippy Porn is one of the films included in Terminal Degeneration: The Films of Jon Moritsugu, released by American Genre Film Archive. I already have a few frilms from AGFA as I am already a fan of the films released by their major partner Vinegar Syndrome. They primarily focus on American genre filmmakers and movies, showcasing a wide range of independent film. What drew me to this release (and all the films inside) were the punk aesthetics of the Moritsugu as a whole. I was unfamiliar with his work when I picked it up, but was very impressed with the depth of his first feature film, My Degeneration, which was not just a takedown of the corporate music industry but also of how easily the aesthetics of punk can be co-opted when one’s adherence to punk is purely aesthetic and performative.
Hippy Porn is very much in the same vein, going even further in its examination of the punk aesthetic and the malaise of youth. Shot in black and white, Moritsugu doesn’t use a lot of the same multi-media techniques that he used in My Degeneration, with more of his influences taking less from the punk scene and more from film history as a whole - particularly that of various new wave movements around the world. The French New Wave specifically is called out in the film itself, with one of the characters, M, deriding the movement and some of its most prominent (male) contributors as boring duds. However, this isn’t Moritsugu signing off on that critique, but rather using M’s voice to highlight how as detached and intellectual some punks want to portray themselves, they are wholly anti-intellectual.
Our three main characters are students with varying levels of interest in what they are studying. M and L are “too cool for school” with M completely checked out from it and L going through the motions and reworking any school essay to actually be about rock and roll. Mick, by comparison, loves what he is studying, photography, and embodies more of punk’s ideals despite being misinformed. The ridicule he faces from M and L is abundant despite the clear affection the two have for him simply because he loves something and they do not. The hypocrisies the three exhibit are many, but one such example of the trio attributing the roots of punk all the way to James Dean and discounting the contributions of people of colour and queer people all while wearing a “FREE MANDELA” t-shirt stands out the most to me.
The experimental style of the French New Wave meshes with Moritsugu’s punk sensibilities perfectly, such as his use of photo negative to obscure fecal matter or his use of text on screen to counter the boredom of a conversation. Moritsugu, unlike his characters, is making full use of a world of knowledge before him and applying it in his limited capacity to do so, creating a rich irony
Trying to Watch as Many of the Films I Blind Bought This Year Before the Year Ends 2Hippy Porn, directed by Jon Moritsugu, 1991
Hippy Porn is one of the films included in Terminal Degeneration: The Films of Jon Moritsugu, released by American Genre Film Archive. I already have a few frilms from AGFA as I am already a fan of the films released by their major partner Vinegar Syndrome. They primarily focus on American genre filmmakers and movies, showcasing a wide range of independent film. What drew me to this release (and all the films inside) were the punk aesthetics of the Moritsugu as a whole. I was unfamiliar with his work when I picked it up, but was very impressed with the depth of his first feature film, My Degeneration, which was not just a takedown of the corporate music industry but also of how easily the aesthetics of punk can be co-opted when one’s adherence to punk is purely aesthetic and performative.
Hippy Porn is very much in the same vein, going even further in its examination of the punk aesthetic and the malaise of youth. Shot in black and white, Moritsugu doesn’t use a lot of the same multi-media techniques that he used in My Degeneration, with more of his influences taking less from the punk scene and more from film history as a whole - particularly that of various new wave movements around the world. The French New Wave specifically is called out in the film itself, with one of the characters, M, deriding the movement and some of its most prominent (male) contributors as boring duds. However, this isn’t Moritsugu signing off on that critique, but rather using M’s voice to highlight how as detached and intellectual some punks want to portray themselves, they are wholly anti-intellectual.
Our three main characters are students with varying levels of interest in what they are studying. M and L are “too cool for school” with M completely checked out from it and L going through the motions and reworking any school essay to actually be about rock and roll. Mick, by comparison, loves what he is studying, photography, and embodies more of punk’s ideals despite being misinformed. The ridicule he faces from M and L is abundant despite the clear affection the two have for him simply because he loves something and they do not. The hypocrisies the three exhibit are many, but one such example of the trio attributing the roots of punk all the way to James Dean and discounting the contributions of people of colour and queer people all while wearing a “FREE MANDELA” t-shirt stands out the most to me.
The experimental style of the French New Wave meshes with Moritsugu’s punk sensibilities perfectly, such as his use of photo negative to obscure fecal matter or his use of text on screen to counter the boredom of a conversation. Moritsugu, unlike his characters, is making full use of a world of knowledge before him and applying it in his limited capacity to do so, creating a rich irony
