WARNING!
Ion Davidov
Lukas Ridgeston
Chance (ba)
Johan Paulik
Distributor | Released | Length |
---|---|---|
BelAmi | 2001 | 155 |
Description source: promotional material
Bel Ami proudly presents an intimate peek inside our company and its various enterprises. "All About Bel Ami" is a potpourri of behind-the-scenes looks at the making of “Lucky Lukas,” “An American in Prague,” “Cherries,” “The English Student,” “SummerCamp” and the “Frisky Summer” series; our photo shoots in New York and Europe; promotional events like the GayVN awards in Los Angeles; and the creation of our stars' dildos. Starring Bel Ami's most famous models and featuring onscreen interviews with superstars Lukas Ridgeston, Johan Paulik, Sebastian Bonnet, Julian Armanis and Chance, “All About Bel Ami” is the documentary everyone has been waiting for.
With the advent of DVD and the accompanying back story features on so many new discs, behind-the-scenes footage has recently become an almost obligatory addition to any new release. Viewers' fascination with "what really happens" on the set, of course, must be weighed against any revelations that would destroy the illusions of the film itself. Keeping this balance is the challenge of the documentary filmmaker who sets about to capture the process whereby a film is made. Last year's amazing effort, Making It with Kristen Bjorn, broke the ice in the adult field, and now George Duroy has allowed his assistant, Mel Roberts, to concoct a similar piece on the making of half a dozen Bel Ami films. The work is entitled All About Bel Ami.
The viewer will not learn all about Bel Ami in this two-and-a-half-hour tape, but he should quickly realize that Roberts has indeed revealed the secret of the Bel Ami magic. It is so simple and so natural that it may well be overlooked in the joy of the moment - Duroy's sets are obviously a combination of laid-back pleasure and intense, hard work. The balance between the two is the key ? and both director and performers seem quick to know when to relax and goof off, when to knuckle down and focus on what is demanded to create seemingly effortless, seemingly spontaneous magic. For example, one moment Lukas Ridgeston and Ion Davidov are seen dancing, horsing around, playing silly games with condoms and lube; the next, both are deadly serious in finding the exact position and correct angle of light during a photo shoot or loosening up with butt plugs before diving into each other with palpable sexual abandon. The results are eerily schizophrenic and endlessly fascinating.
All About Bel Ami is a kaleidoscope of a production, filled to overflowing with bits and pieces of on-the-set footage from such films as Frisky Summer 2, Lukas' Story 2, An American in Prague, Cherries and The English Student, and there are very few of the familiar faces from the Bel Ami stable that do not make appearances at one time or another. Dano Sulik, Kristen Jensen, Erik Kovac, Adrian Kinski, Karl Tenner, Julian Armanis and Chance are just a few that immediately come to mind.
The film is largely built around a free-wheeling three-way interview with Lukas Ridgeston, Johan Paulik and Sebastian Bonnet, and snippets from it are used throughout to introduce, comment upon and reveal the various production adventures. The interview also gives surprising insight into the characters of the three superstars - how and why they came to adult films, how and why they stay.
The first and most extensive footage is of Frisky Summer 2, which was shot in Portugal in 1996, and almost from the beginning, the viewer is aware of the very real camaraderie among the cast and crew, the total lack of self-consciousness in working (and playing) nude and the innate hypersexuality of all the performers. For example, notice the number of shots in which the actors are constantly (and often unconsciously) playing with themselves, as if keeping it hard were the most natural thing in the world.
One quickly concludes that a Duroy production is also a communal effort, and it is intriguing to watch the "stars" also working as crew members, hauling props and constructing scenery, helping out with hair and make-up, holding the giant reflectors or picking up a still or video camera to help capture a moment. There seem to be no divas here, and the proceedings often have the happy-go-lucky air of a Garland-Rooney movie in which "my grandmother has a barn, let's do a show!"
Among the many highlights: Ridgeston and Paulik accepting their Hall of Fame Awards at last year's AVN Awards show; Ridgeston grabbing a mike in a Portuguese bar for a bit of impromptu karaoke singing; Bonnet carefully wrapping a skimpy bikini around his dick to protect it while nude sunbathing; Paulik making a business call and working himself to erection simultaneously; performers washing the sand off their dicks with bottled water before a sex scene on the beach; Ridgeston's confession, "I am becoming jaded - I want to try something new"; the amazing session in which the molds were cast for several of the stars' personalized dildos; a book signing in Berlin as the performers discover their celebrity; Chance and Paulik's candid discussion about foreskin and the lack of it; Kinski's charming interview in which he reveals, "I like boys, and the money's not bad either"; Davidov's moment of mad candor in which he tells the camera, "I am not normal"; and some brief footage from the abandoned film in Greece that was to be called Lukas in Love.
There is, of course, extensive nudity throughout, and there are brief hard-core segments from the final cuts of each of the films explored, but All About Bel Ami is not a film calculated primarily to get you off. (This is not to say, however, that it won't - for there are some incredibly hot moments in it.) What is does is set about to allow you to share the experience of making an adult film George Duroy style. It is an experience you will long remember.
- Jerry Douglas
Okay, here's the deal. I've watched "All About Bel Ami" (2001) three times. I simply could not get enough of it. Moreover, I am not particularly fond of documentaries, especially those having to do with how porn is made. However, this one is, without question, a time capsule thing: Put this video in some underground silo on the border of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, set the time release for 2050, and imagine the denizens of the future creaming their loads over the exquisite beauty and explosive sexual energy of this horny group of Euroguys who forever changed the way male porn is made at the end of the 20th Century.
This epic is directed by Mel Roberts, and produced by Bel Ami's impresario George Duroy ( http://www.GeorgeDuroy.com ). They have assembled all their stars: Lukas, Johan, Sebastian, Julian, Chance, and a few others, for live interviews that are edited into various clips from a wide variety of flicks, behind-the-scenes footage and general partying, which in the end will convince even the most skeptical porn critic that: 1. These boys enjoy what they do, and some of them aren't even acting; and 2. It is definitely time to move to Prague.
The flick is built around the production of "Frisky Summer 2," "Cherries," "Summer Camp," "The English Student," "An American in Prague," "Lucky Lukas," and the induction into the Male Porn Star Hall of Fame of Lukas and Johan, which took place in Hollywood in 2000 ( http://GayVNawards.com ). In all, there are ten vignettes, including one in which the major stars are shown with their hardons being sized, then slathered with plaster for molds that are to be used to manufacture dildos to be peddled to their adoring fans. It's hilarious.
I will be mercifully brief in discussing the step-by-step outline of this film; if you are a Bel Ami freak, you must get it; if you are a casual fan, you will become a freak if you view it. However, there is one thing which came through here from all the very candid, and what seemed to be quite sincere, interviews with the major stars woven through the fabric of the flick (with excellent subtitles): While Lukas Ridgeston and Johan Paulik are obviously the megastars here, it really is Sebastian Bonnet who is the heart and soul of the troupe. Employed as the assistant to director Roberts, Sebastian is wonderfully relaxed and candid in his interviews, and it is quite apparent that he is as comfortable with his sexuality as any young man his age can be (and he says he has a boyfriend, sorry guys). This is a potential superstar who grabs your heart (and your crotch, by the way) almost instantly, and he provides the cohesiveness that puts the documentary over the top.
The segments of "All About Bel Ami" are, in order:
-- Filming "Frisky Summer 2" in Portugal, with Lukas, Sebastian, Julian Armanis and Erik Kovac. Exuberant, passionate, and somewhat helter-skelter, this segment sets the tone, and gives one the feeling that Bel Ami is one very focused, and professional, outfit -- with horny stars.
-- Trip by Lukas and Johan to New York City and Los Angeles for the Hall of Fame. Very interesting to hear their comments, off- and on-stage, and to see them close up without make-up. On stage, these guys are stars, and as gorgeous as they are on the screen.
-- Back to Portugal again, complete with scenes from "Frisky Summer 2."
-- The dildo factory.
-- Book signing jamboree in Berlin. These guys are BIG in Europe.
-- Filming "Summer Camp" in Slovakia. A charming interview with Adrian Kinski ("Well, I like boys ... ") is followed by a series of production shots of various scenes. Included is a complete scene with two unidentified models, one of which is definitely Denis Aysner. It's quite good and very intense. Nice bonus.
-- Very long segment dealing with "An American in Prague," in that city, Budapest and Bratislava. This features Johan meeting mono-named Chance, an American with a big dick who takes Prague by storm. This episode reveals far more about Johan Paulik than it does about Chance, and is very erotic in its implications. Lots of production-scene sex.
-- Romping in the snow in Prague the day after Christmas with Julian and Claude Cocteau filming "The English Student." The latter boy, a dark-haired Rick Nelson clone, will simply take your breath away. The foreplay, afterplay, and sexplay between these two is sizzling, even for a documentary.
-- Several production scenes in the Slovakian countryside centered around "Cherries." More fucking in this segment than the others, and deservedly so: quite a grand assortment of asses and cocks on very pretty boys. There's an extensive photoshoot between Paolo Estefan and Sasha Kasparov filled with lust and sex.
-- The finale is a long, wonderfully enthusiastic, romp through virtually every scene in "Lucky Lukas," including plenty of action in the barn scene, lots of great angles and retakes of the threesome between Ion Davidov, Vladimir Hausman and Lukas, and, of course, exposition, development, execution and denouement in the sensational flip-flop final scene between Ion and Lukas.
What more could you want? This is a keeper. As I said, I've watched it three times. And, if you will excuse me, I am going back for more right now ...
DVD features: Chapters; and no regional coding (playable worldwide).
A DVD Review by Bo Champion