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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
Muriel d’Ansembourg’s romantic drama short film, Fuck-a-Fan, screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. It contains a mixture of diverse themes within its brisk runtime of twenty-four minutes. As my fourth short film watch (and the fourth that I am reviewing), its story sheds light on what really goes on during the shooting of an adult film production. I gave it a couple of watches prior to its premiere at the festival then once more afterward. Confidently, it can be said that the entire narrative is a substance-heavy production consisting of the most brilliant cinematic elements seen at the festival.
Fuck-a-Fan is written and directed by d’Ansembourg.
In this review, I will discuss Muriel d’Ansembourg’s Fuck-a-Fan. As this article’s title suggests, no spoilers will be present.
Tribeca’s Fuck-a-Fan Synopsis
Here is the synopsis for Muriel d’Ansembourg’s Fuck-a-Fan, screening at the Tribeca Film Festival this month.
Chloe Cam, the hottest porn star on social media, launches a “Fuck-a-Fan” contest to blow up her following and let one lucky fan live out his dream.
Tribeca Festival 2024
That turns out to be Thomas, an awkward young man from Amsterdam whose heart was recently crushed. In his loneliness and desperation, he can’t help projecting something deeper onto her than porn-star thrills.
When the lights go on and the camera starts rolling, Thomas and Chloe find themselves as they never expected: vulnerable, and accountable to each other.
Discussion
On paper, Fuck-a-Fan may seem like a slow-paced short film. Still, with d’Ansembourg’s screenplay and direction, along with all the additional components, one could argue that this is a product of sincere thought and patience. In more recent years, with sex workers being pushed to the foreground as the subject matter of social politics, such as on social media platforms including X/Twitter, there has been a lot of vocalized stigma talking down on pornographic material. The realm of adult filmmaking and X-rated media content has become a target susceptible to scrutiny from many sides of the social spectrum. Sex workers are constantly reduced to less than human from rather inhumane voices. Suffice it to say that d’Ansembourg approaches her short with the utmost brilliance that I aim to expound upon.
The film’s narrative is incredibly erotic, as narratives focused on pornography tend to be. Yet, it taps into a dramatic, tranquil tone with one or two brief comedic moments. After all, this is what many pornographic material is comprised of. Costume designer Ellen Lens and makeup artist Suus de Nies bring fictional adult film actor, Chloe Cam (Alessa Savage), to life with a pink-purplish wig with bangs, a shiny blue wig, and a fishnet bra-and-panty set. Production designer Elsje de Bruijn sets the literal stage for what is Cam’s studio film set. Director of Photography Joris Bulstra captures all of this in a manner that is exterior to the confines of what is typically pornographic. Instead, viewers are given a window into the reality of adult filmmaking and what can occur outside of the camera.
With that said, this collective of components cannot contain their cohesion without d’Ansembourg’s screenwriting and storytelling, which are a major driving force behind the short film’s merits.
A Smutty Spectacle for Sore Eyes
First of all, the filmmaker provides a perspective on adult film sets. The male protagonist, Thomas (Joes Brauers), walks onto the set and realizes that what he sees is fake. This publicized notion of the set as an authentic setting is anything but, and in actuality, it is all a spectacle. What that means can be defined in terms by French philosopher and filmmaker, Guy Debord. In the introductory chapter of his 1967 critical text, The Society of the Spectacle, “The Culmination of Separation”, he details the spectacle as follows.
[The spectacle] is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation … a social relation between people that is mediated by images … a worldview that has actually been materialized, a view of a world that has become objective … the very heart of this real society’s unreality … an affirmation of appearances and an identification of all human social life with appearances … the material reconstruction of the religious illusion. [Its] social function is the concrete manufacture of alienation.
Guy Debord, ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, pp. 10-13, 17
What Debord explains is that the spectacle is a sort of intangible cog within the megamachine that sees human bodies as capital. For fans of pornography like Thomas, it may be hard to grasp that adult films and what goes on in that realm are all an illusion, a fantasy. Pornography is one of many major social machines that attract attention and produce reactions. Spectators can be so far removed from the space of reality that they can only discover fragments of this reality, which establish what Debord refers to as a separate pseudoworld.
A Beautiful, Convoluted Depiction of Erotic Fantasy
More so, in terms of both porn and fantasy, what is curious to d’Ansembourg is the distinction that she makes. Obviously, the spectacle of pornography is not the depiction of sexuality. In his MIT Press text, The Agony of Eros, South Korean-German cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han disputes that the human body consists of “history, memory, and identity. These same features are missing in the ‘non-sites’ of tourism, where people pass by instead of lingering and spending time”, i.e. via pilgrimage (31), and “[a] naked face without mystery or expression—reduced simply to being on display—is obscene and pornographic” (32).
Fuck-a-Fan lends humanity to Chloe Cam—the fact that she portrays the role of a lascivious character figure—, and that probably is not even her government name. The relationship between her and Thomas in this Tribeca short is an oscillation between a male visiting an objectified female and a man making his stay in the presence of a woman. Furthermore, Han writes about fantasy as follows.
[C]onsumer culture is constantly producing new wants and needs by means of media images and narratives. But desire is something different from both wanting and needing. … [I]nformation and fantasy are opposing forces [thus] pornography—which maximizes visual information, as it were—destroys erotic fantasy.
Byung-Chul Han, ‘The Agony of Eros’, pp. 37-38
The Passion in the Flame is Ignited
Han likens fantasy to a “twilight space of dreams and desire”. However, in d’Ansembourg’s Tribeca short, the disparity between pornography and fantasy is left up to the viewer’s interpretation. Thomas feels challenged to differentiate what Chloe Cam embodies. Fresh from a break-up, I find it a bit odd that he approaches the sex worker with questions of love. Sure, his questions are awkward albeit natural. Even so, where exactly did he go wrong as a romantic partner to his ex-girlfriend? The absolute root cause of his lack of passion is unclear, and again, details such as this are left to interpretation.
In her micrographia, In Praise of Risk, French psychoanalyst Anne Dufourmantelle cites human beings as bodies that possess more than just information—we hold the capacity to love. Regarding the metaphysics of love, she writes of “an art of dependency … a self-dispossession” (9); and additionally of passion as “this truth that one expects from the other [a]s a weapon that can easily be turned against us” (17). At this point, Thomas’s limited perspective of adult films only highlights an acknowledged comparison between the pornographic and the fantastical.
This only contributes to the male protagonist’s minimal knowledge of love and passion. Conversely, Chloe Cam’s side of Fuck-a-Fan‘s story establishes not just a pornstar-and-fan relationship. It also sets into stone a dynamic between—in a manner of speaking—a master and a slave, or in more relatable terms, between a dominatrix and a client.
Power Dynamics
In his critical text, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojève elaborates on the master-slave dialectic on the basis of desire and recognition, amongst other vital elements. He explains:
For man is real only to the extent that he lives in a natural world [that is] ‘foreign’ to him; he must ‘deny’ it, transform it, fight it, in order to realize himself in it. [R]eal and true man is the result of his inter-action with others [and the Master] can be satisfied only by recognition from one whom he recognizes as worthy of recognizing him. [T]he Master’s ‘truth’ is the Slave and the Slave’s Work. … The complete, absolutely free man [then] will be the Slave who has ‘overcome’ his Slavery.
Alexandre Kojève, ‘Introduction to the Reading of Hegel’, pp.14-15, 19-20
In simpler terms, the Slave represents “change, transcendence, transformation, ‘education'”. By contrast, the Master is related to a cog in the machine.
Chloe Cam & Thomas
What I find most intriguing about this Tribeca short is figuring out who is in control. On the one hand, Thomas seeks—or desires—an understanding of love. He denies Chloe Cam’s proposal of what they should shoot on the set. Alternatively, he has the sex worker demonstrate to him what it feels like to reach a climax, and moreover in a way, what it is like to make love. On the other hand, there is Chloe Cam, who is—at one moment—illustrated as the big spoon in bed with Thomas. From the start, she comes off as the dominant person in their relationship. She establishes their dynamic by helping “take the stress away from [Thomas]”.
She proposes to shoot a “stuck porn” scenario, which is an entirely different body of explaining on its own. Still, Thomas’s denial to shoot this is kind of a refusal to portray the dominant figure in an adult film. In reality, Chloe Cam is the dominant person, or the Master. Her “machine”, realm, society, etc. is the porn industry. Even at that, it isn’t necessarily that she is free or not free.
Kojève argues that “[t]he Master can never detach himself from the World in which he lives, and if this World perishes, he perishes with it” (29). In the eyes of both d’Ansembourg and Savage, there is a power balance between the two main characters. I agree with this idea more. Chloe Cam’s domain is the porn industry, whereas Thomas has minimal knowledge of what is going on there. From my understanding, the sex worker’s desire is to survive and thrive in a world where she must compete for recognition—or to recognize others.
The Crew Behind Fuck-a-Fan
Isabella Depeweg, Els Vandevorst, and Ian Prior (UK) are the producers of this Tribeca short film. Des Hamilton is the executive producer.
Joris Bulstra serves as the director of photography.
Tessel Flora de Vries is the editor. Niels Koopman is the assistant editor.
Associate producer Mark Lee serves as the UK casting director, as well as the script supervisor. Hebbes Casting and Wouter Kirchjunger do additional casting for the short.
Herman Pieëte and Sensesound are the sound designers. Zoë Beekes serves as the sound editor.
Laura Bell and Chayenne van den Hazel are the music supervisors.
Alessa Savage and Dick Bush serve as consultants on this short.
Elsje de Bruijn serves as the production designer. Rikke jr. Jelier is the props & set decorator.
Ellen Lens is the costume designer. Suus de Nies does the makeup for the actors.
The Cast of Fuck-a-Fan
Alessa Savage portrays Chloe Cam, the fictitious adult film star of the short film. Joes Brauers plays Thomas, a nervous and recently heartbroken male and a fan of Chloe Cam.
Dave MacRae plays Randy, Chloe Cam’s cameraman and adult film producer.
Rodrigo van Rutte plays an extra in the film.
Performances and Character Developments
Brauers’s portrayal of the naiveté or obliviousness in Thomas is interesting. The character is representative of fans of adult films who only see the motion picture and not the larger picture. To me, Thomas is an incomplete person, and the mystery of his well-being could be properly resolved with greater evidence. His views on love are not made transparent. In their place, viewers at least get to see what he thinks of pornography and fantasy.
By comparison, Alessa Savage has an assertive and determined quality in spirit that can be found quite admirable, both as an actor and in character. She alone makes this Tribeca short worth the watch. As a performer, she has one line delivery that is spoken with a straight face, and yet, I could not help but laugh out loud at how ridiculous it sounds within the context of pornography.
I love how well she comes in raw and commands every scene of Fuck-a-Fan. There is an intimacy involving the two characters’ hands and lotion that speaks for the esoteric theme of love and passion. At first, the adult film actor can be physically exuberant. At other times, she can be genuine and sincere in her unique voice. Seldom towards the end does Savage reach a shocking point, but that plays into the serious aura that she can have about her. All in all, she is incredible for her first mainstream film role, a true powerhouse performer, and I cannot wait to see her work with d’Ansembourg again in their feature film, Truly Naked.
Final Thoughts on the Tribeca Short, Fuck-a-Fan
The best thing to do is just take it slow.
Chloe Cam (Alessa Savage), Muriel d’Ansembourg’s ‘Fuck-a-Fan’
Muriel d’Ansembourg’s Fuck-a-Fan is an intelligent short that says more in action. Rather than tell the audience what love, passion, and fantasy are, she paints an almost poetic image and exhibits these key aspects through her lead actors, especially Savage. There is a contest of risk, and the filmmaker is no stranger to this, given her prior shorts, a few of which I have seen. So far, this is the best short to come out of the Tribeca Film Festival, and it deserves stronger recognition.
I have two hour-long interviews with both the filmmaker and the adult film star where we further discuss the major themes of the short film. Until then, you must take my word for it—this film is excellent all over!
5/5 stars
Muriel d’Ansembourg’s Fuck-a-Fan is now screening at the Tribeca Film Festival!
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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
