Rule 34

There are parts of Rule 34 (Regra 34), Julia Murat’s new work competing at the Locarno Film Festival, that are reminiscent of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, if only because both share youth, sex, and politics as foci. But the late Italian director didn’t have to contend with the ubiquity of digital pornography when he was filming in 2003.

In 2022, it is impossible to discuss sex seriously without considering that pornography is so common that, in theory and maybe out of theory, you could have it along with your breakfast. This lends the new work from Brazil, even without its pubic-hair realism, a different sort of radicality than The Dreamers could ever quite possess. And this, sadly but inevitably, limits the potential audience for this brave, well-crafted work.

Murat starts with a woman pleasuring herself for the pleasure of unseen clients. Of course, this scene and many more like it implicate you, the viewer. You are also watching a woman take off her clothes for your pleasure. Perhaps the only difference is you pay with attention, while the story’s clients pay with tokens. Murat can get away with putting a young actress on camera doing lewd things without, say, the noise and repudiation that greeted Abdellatif Kechiche after Cannes screened Blue Is the Warmest Colour back in 2013.

In any case, Simone, as Murat’s protagonist is named, is a law student and women’s right activist in Brazil. We see her in class as much as we see her in the dark of her room, entertaining men with the usual sex-pun names. One day, she comes across a video showing a woman in the throes of ecstasy (or pain?) brought on by a session of BDSM in which bondage, discipline and sadomasochism intertwine.

Something about it gets Simone interested in pursuing the same. Her interest provides her customers with something different to enjoy. In one scene, she is encouraged to try auto-asphyxiation, which is more properly referred to as autoerotic asphyxiation, an activity that attained a bit of cultural clout when some media reports claimed it took the life of David Carradine at the end of the 2000s. In other words: Simone is about to enter truly dangerous territory.

Meanwhile, in her daytime life, a violent incident between a married couple serves as a trigger and in one discussion, she defends prostitution by comparing it to being a housemaid. Prostitutes and housemaids both get exploited, she says, so why are her classmates only interested in ending prostitution? These scenes are meant to suggest that Simone ordinarily is a regular, thinking member of society. She just happens to have this sexual kink. But her sex life, even outside of her side gig, isn’t regular. She is one part of a ménage à trois. Her partners act like guardians but when the first of an unusually violent request is made and acquiesced to, it is to one of them she’ll turn.

It is hard to tell just what exactly, if anything, Murat is trying to say with Rule 34. There are ideas on femininity, on masculinity, on the morality of laws, on domestic violence, on the allure and vulnerability of the human body, and, in one hard-to-watch- scene, on the male body’s capacity for intrusion. The biggest idea on display may be a critique of digital capitalism but, mon Dieu!, she has taken the most explicit route to get there.