Profane (2011/MVD Visual DVD)

 

Picture: D     Sound: D     Extras: D     Feature: C

 

 

A young girl named Muna lives life on her own terms and her own way.  Through dominatrix, ecstasy, and submission she makes her livelihood, all the meanwhile she is practicing Muslim.  With her questionable occupation, she is able to seek enlightenment through a highly unorthodox method and captures the spirit of her enlightenment through vivid fantasy images.  While some would call her is whore, junkie, or sinner it is only fair to ask how does one know what is good or bad unless they actually experience for themselves?

 

In Usama Alshaibi’s Profane (2011), a young Muslim woman living totally different from how you think a young Muslim woman should live.  Along with her roommate, she travels between clients, friends, parties, drugs and drinking living as a Domme, given pleasure to those who like to be dominated or enjoy sexual-fetish masochisms.  All the meanwhile, she converses with the taxi cab driver on how life should be lived. 

 

Be warned, this is filled with nude girls in fetish outfits, and drug related context.  This film at first seems so abstract with fetishes, nudity and sexual imagery it might be mistaken for some art film, but what this film really is a unique lifestyle, which a practicing religious female in a male dominated society is able to live as the Domme instead of the dominated (But then who's to say call girls can't still be religious or not allowed to go to church).  In the end, the film boldly challenges modern norms by mixing heresy with sexual fantasy empowerment though with very mixed results.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

-   Ricky Chiang