By Simon Butler
Sex, Drugs, and Democracy, the new documentary directed by Jonathan Blank, premiered in New York at the Cinema Village Theater on 12th Street and University Place. On the wall in the ticketbooth hung a movie poster depicting two Asian women - one completely without clothing - holding guns and looking sexy to the nth degree. Had the guns disappeared from the hands of these femmes fatales, the poster would have been the most appropriate visual aid to display during the run of Sex, Drugs, and Democracy, as the latter film almost emulates a porno flick for mainstream audiences for about a third of the movie's length. In reality, Sex, Drugs, and Democracy is a documentary about that uber-democratic European country, Holland - a place where Blank had lived for a time, and, presumably, had enjoyed quite a bit. And although the movie is enjoyable, there are problematic aspects of the work that confine it to the product of cinematic genres.
Sex, Drugs, and Democracy seems to be divided into quarters, each dealing with the "liberated" practices of the Dutch. Part one is about sex, part two is about drugs, part three is about...well, democracy, and part four is mostly a compendium of the three previous subjects. Blank shows Holland as a mostly unrestricted environment - drugs are tolerated (although not technically legal), prostitution is state-regulated, and anti-racism protests run rampant, seemingly daily. While doctors, university faculty, prostitutes, druggies, and other average Jans are interviewed, the wacky images of the Netherlands appear on screen in completely uncensored form. There are "coffee shops" where one can purchase different kinds of marijuana and hashish. From their rooms, and behind windows, prostitutes tempt pedestrians to negotiate the peculiar contracts of the trade. In the middle of an Amsterdam street, a young man smokes on a joint that has to be at least a foot long. And, of course, the filmmaker doesn't hesitate to enter the unusual museum whose exhibits are devoted entirely to sex.
Blank's point seems to be that the United States, as well as other most other countries, has much to learn from the legal leniency of Holland. Presumably due to the extent of sex education in the high schools (and to the accessibility of sexual forums and practices in the cities), Holland has the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the world. A public program existed that allowed people to take bicycles off the street and ride them around until they reached their destinations, whereupon others could take the bikes for similar use. And every now and then, an article from the Dutch constitution turns up on the screen, maintaining specific unalienable human rights and various obligations of the government to the governed - such as the right of the people to be provided with public education, housing, etc.
One of the problems with this point of view is that the ideology espoused in the film becomes didactic; the movie ends up looking like a travelogue advertising the beauties of a free society like Holland, rather than a complex discussion of the various problems and boons of such a place. No great film - documentary or narrative - presents points only one way. Aside from the fact that there are no people arguing against legalization/tolerance of drugs, tax-supported/subsidized prostitution, or free speech (what about the rights of Neo-Nazi groups to march down the streets propagating their views?), there are no people - not even the doctors - giving specific statistics that apply to the diverse repercussions of such freedom. When one deluded fellow remarks that heroin and cocaine are not toxic if used wisely and in moderation, the audience must wonder where he gets his information. There are people who have died from overdoses on their first drug experiments, and there are those who have made their lives messes through the years, but have still survived as addicts. Hardly anyone speaks about the problems of addiction in the film, and at points, the movie seems to glorify the consumption of recreational drugs (especially marijuana, seen in the film as a practically harmless product, which almost everyone uses). In one scene, a father and his son even light up together. The problem in advocating such a stance is obvious: proof, not just the opinions of talking heads, is needed as support. Otherwise, the audience will dismiss the interviews as flaky discourse - the products of ideology without substance.
While Sex, Drugs, and Democracy is an incredibly long film for a documentary (about an hour and a half), the movie spends a very slight amount of time on subjects worth discussing. A bisexual cantor at a synagogue is interviewed for only a moment - and then, seemingly only to reveal her sexual practices. The filmmaker infiltrates a prison where, supposedly, criminals are rehabilitated in an unusually progressive manner. But Blank zooms over these issues as quickly as the music cues change (for the most part, the music, consisting of songs by European and American rock bands, is vibrant and appropriate). The audience doesn't see much in depth, aside from the myriad of phallic objects plunging into orifices on stage, in museums, or on the street (this includes the twelve-inch joint being put into someone's mouth). Due to the quick editing, the viewer is entertained, but not enlightened. The personages in the film come off as freaks, rather than as normal people with normal lives, as Blank wants them to be seen. In an hour and thirty minutes, one can afford to devote some footage to the development of characters. Everything moves well, and is edited tightly, with cute tunes to make the movie flow, but without delving more into anecdotes, Sex, Drugs, and Democracy maintains a redundancy that lends a slight tediousness to the film as a whole. The audience knows that Holland is a good place - the audience will care about the characters if the director makes an effort to promote the characters. Otherwise, the only thing promoted is the director's own ideology.