Except for pornography, there are not many mainstream (in various degrees) movies that expose a man's anus directly on the camera, but should you start counting them this intense Spanish horror movie would serve as a willing starter. And not only does it expose a man's anus, it also dives deep into it.
The premise of the movie in speleological terms is quite simple: a group of people - they're not exactly what you'd call young adults, nor are they really friends - goes vacating on some desolate coast where they find an entrance to a cave, go into it to explore it, get lost, and troubles emerge. Although speleologists will object that without a helmet in a cave system through which you need to crawl there's practically nil chance that your head will remain in one piece, but generally they will agree that while if getting lost in complete darkness your doom is sealed, with several handy, sturdy flashlights and even night-vision device your chances are much better.
The silence of the speleologists begins, however, when we see a cave not as a cave but as an anus. More precisely, the entrance to the cave as the anus, and the cave system as a whole as the human intestines. This way the logic of the story gains better consistency, and succeeds in sublimating the message of the movie far more thoroughly than if resorting to anything supernatural. In fact, the movie could not be closer to "natural" than it is! It is an act of digestion and excretion, lending the "found video" genre a tight dramaturgic structure : as the process of digestion suggests, what goes in, comes out, which is the optimistic view of the adventure (some might come out again), but before it comes out, it must be eaten and dissolved - the dark horror inside the human intestines.
But it is crucial once again to stress the importance of the exposed anus of one of the male characters. It is no coincidence that this anus belongs to the one who will be, firstly, responsible for leading others deep into the cave (intestinal) system, secondly, devouring them, and thirdly, getting stuck himself. For here we are not dealing simply with any intestinal system, but with a system that is human malice.
Human malice is - in intestinal terms - digestion gone wrong. It is a cry for freedom (excretion) getting stuck, more specifically, getting stuck in its own devouring mechanism which then produces more excreta and further worsens the condition of constipation. It is a self-defecating program, as it were, that eventually kills its host, in a way literally drowning it in its own excreta: just as the character to whom the anus belongs is the most eager to liberate others from the cave by way of democratic legitimacy (here we can think of the USA liberating other countries under the aegis of democratic consent), so is he also the one who pushes the idea of liberation over the top. He crosses the fine line and turns the noble deed into malice, a constipation just contrary to the excretion (liberation) as the final goal, a retention of excreta that drowns its subject.
The importance of the anus belonging to a male rather than a female - after all, inside the cave the hand-held camera catches female behinds many times thus suggesting that the cave-intestinal system might be gender unbiased - lies in the fact that the intestinal system and human malice merge in one specific point, and that is male misogyny. The cave- intestinal system as a speleological-biological environment may be neutral per se, but when infused with male misogyny and chauvinism it becomes a signifier of human malice that is as deeply rooted and dark as intestines/cave themselves. And this provides yet another sharp edge to the message of the movie: if liberating others by the force of democracy may ostensibly be seen as the prerogative of the "enlightened" West (here you might notice the role of flashlights inside the cave), with this misogynous element the liberal-democratic stance comes to transcend this limitation and becomes a far more universal force that can fit any political (and economic, corporate etc.) entity anywhere precisely because of the darkness (and deep rootedness) of misogyny as its constitutive part. In other words, if you find yourself stuck deep inside misogynist intestines (a.k.a. ideology, corporation, profit etc.), beware if you get offered help by the same misogynist in whose intestines you got stuck.
The premise of the movie in speleological terms is quite simple: a group of people - they're not exactly what you'd call young adults, nor are they really friends - goes vacating on some desolate coast where they find an entrance to a cave, go into it to explore it, get lost, and troubles emerge. Although speleologists will object that without a helmet in a cave system through which you need to crawl there's practically nil chance that your head will remain in one piece, but generally they will agree that while if getting lost in complete darkness your doom is sealed, with several handy, sturdy flashlights and even night-vision device your chances are much better.
The silence of the speleologists begins, however, when we see a cave not as a cave but as an anus. More precisely, the entrance to the cave as the anus, and the cave system as a whole as the human intestines. This way the logic of the story gains better consistency, and succeeds in sublimating the message of the movie far more thoroughly than if resorting to anything supernatural. In fact, the movie could not be closer to "natural" than it is! It is an act of digestion and excretion, lending the "found video" genre a tight dramaturgic structure : as the process of digestion suggests, what goes in, comes out, which is the optimistic view of the adventure (some might come out again), but before it comes out, it must be eaten and dissolved - the dark horror inside the human intestines.
But it is crucial once again to stress the importance of the exposed anus of one of the male characters. It is no coincidence that this anus belongs to the one who will be, firstly, responsible for leading others deep into the cave (intestinal) system, secondly, devouring them, and thirdly, getting stuck himself. For here we are not dealing simply with any intestinal system, but with a system that is human malice.
Human malice is - in intestinal terms - digestion gone wrong. It is a cry for freedom (excretion) getting stuck, more specifically, getting stuck in its own devouring mechanism which then produces more excreta and further worsens the condition of constipation. It is a self-defecating program, as it were, that eventually kills its host, in a way literally drowning it in its own excreta: just as the character to whom the anus belongs is the most eager to liberate others from the cave by way of democratic legitimacy (here we can think of the USA liberating other countries under the aegis of democratic consent), so is he also the one who pushes the idea of liberation over the top. He crosses the fine line and turns the noble deed into malice, a constipation just contrary to the excretion (liberation) as the final goal, a retention of excreta that drowns its subject.
The importance of the anus belonging to a male rather than a female - after all, inside the cave the hand-held camera catches female behinds many times thus suggesting that the cave-intestinal system might be gender unbiased - lies in the fact that the intestinal system and human malice merge in one specific point, and that is male misogyny. The cave- intestinal system as a speleological-biological environment may be neutral per se, but when infused with male misogyny and chauvinism it becomes a signifier of human malice that is as deeply rooted and dark as intestines/cave themselves. And this provides yet another sharp edge to the message of the movie: if liberating others by the force of democracy may ostensibly be seen as the prerogative of the "enlightened" West (here you might notice the role of flashlights inside the cave), with this misogynous element the liberal-democratic stance comes to transcend this limitation and becomes a far more universal force that can fit any political (and economic, corporate etc.) entity anywhere precisely because of the darkness (and deep rootedness) of misogyny as its constitutive part. In other words, if you find yourself stuck deep inside misogynist intestines (a.k.a. ideology, corporation, profit etc.), beware if you get offered help by the same misogynist in whose intestines you got stuck.