WETLANDS (2013) starts off with a text warning that this story "should not be read or adapted to film". "Wir brauchen Gott" which translates to "we need God" finalizes the warning.
There's a quote at the beginning of the film that states that this text "should not be read or adapted to film". "Wir brauchen Gott" which translates to "we need God" finalizes the warning. I remember being told by my parents when I was younger "if you fiddle about with it too much, it'll fall off". The same can be said for whatever Helen who at every turn, in acts of defiance, tests the boundaries of social normalcy and sexual deviancy.
This is the infamous German cinematic gem WETLANDS, directed by David Wnendt. You may be wondering, is it really as bad as people have said? As fairly desensitized individuals, I would say no, because it has genuine heart that if you allow yourself to look at it from anywhere other than surface level, you'll see a genuine story about a teenage girl who acts out as she's trying to get her parents back together.
But honestly, for everyone else out there, this film is probably one of the most extreme examples of anything we've covered, so if you're of a sensitive disposition, you have been warned. If that doesn't phase you, the film will play to at the Enzian Cinema in Maitland Florida, as part of the Uncomfortable Brunch programming on Sunday February 4th, 12pm.
Laura: Great.
Ryan: Alrighty. So here we are.
Laura: What's your favorite German word?
Kat: Should I clear out my throat like everyone else?
Laura: All right.
Ryan: Um, my favorite German word.
Laura: Well, hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE, the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined by my co host, Ryan.
Ryan: Oh, hello. Hi, there. Sorry, he's there.
Laura: I don't know why you were.
Ryan: I can hear someone, um. I can hear someone breathing, and I don't know if it's maybe just me. Like, I can hear myself breathing.
Laura: I don't know.
Ryan: I'm, like, recording the sun and goes.
Laura: Stop breathing into it. Stop breathing.
Ryan: Just stop breathing. Oh, I wish I couldn't breathe anymore. That'd be great.
Laura: Okay. And we are also joined by our friends Josh and Katie from Uncomfortable Brunch, because we get to watch this movie in the cinema soon.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: Yay.
Josh: Hello. How are you?
Laura: Oh, hey.
Josh: Thank you for having us back.
Laura: Thank you. Thanks for coming over on this, uh, beautiful day, and I didn't even say what the film is yet. I'm excited. I really like this movie. Which I also saw at an OG Uncomfortable Brunch back at Will's Pub.
Josh: Yeah, that was, uh. What was that? Like, 2016? Does that sound right? I can't remember.
Laura: I think maybe sounds right. You would know better than me.
Josh: No, I wouldn't.
Laura: We're talking about the 2013. Uh, it's a German film drama. Also romantic comedy. Wetlands.
Ryan: Wetlands, Wetlands.
Laura: Um, probably referring to your wet lady bits down under.
Josh: Not yours in general.
Laura: The ones that I own at home in a jar.
Josh: Baby food jars filled.
Kat: Like Ed Geen?
Laura: Yeah, kind of like she does in this film, actually.
Kat: She does play around with her butthole bits.
Laura: Yeah, butthole bits. Literal bits of her own butthole.
Ryan: Oh, God, her asshole is a real mess. That's a freak show down there.
Laura: It's maybe the most horrifically depicted butthole in all of cinema m that I've ever seen.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I wonder. Well, hold on. You say in all of cinema, uh, is there another butthole that has been.
Josh: I mean, there's the whole thing in society that's pretty upsetting, but that's really super fucked up.
Ryan: Yeah, I keep on forgetting about that one, and I shouldn't.
Laura: That's a film I always bring up. Can we watch society? And you go, I'm not in the mood.
Josh: I'm always in the mood. Come over to my house tonight, and we'll watch society.
Laura: Wait, what is it called?
Kat: Shunting or.
Josh: Yeah, shunting.
Laura: Um, is that from society? Yeah. Cool. I don't know. I haven't seen it.
Ryan: We've got it on bluray. It's sitting on the shelf. If you want to watch it tonight. We can watch it tonight if you fancy.
Laura: Hooray.
Ryan: Okay, great.
Laura: As a movie, you can get a meal, like a nice wet meal, and watch society.
Ryan: You will not feel grossed out by it whatsoever.
Laura: Like a hot bowl of chili. Yeah.
Kat: Lots of cheese that's going to melt on top.
Josh: And I don't know if you can figure out a way to play around with Vaseline or something, too, while doing it that will really just, like, around.
Laura: The rim of the bowl.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: Like a margarita.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Just like, that movie is not gory. It's gooey.
Ryan: Writhe my hands in Vaseline for the entire duration of watching them. It's like watching from beyond. Everything's just slightly more.
Laura: I like those wet 80s films.
Ryan: I do sexy. Yeah, they make it extra sexy, especially from beyond. Sexy from beyond actually does good parts that are. Is wetland sexy?
Josh: Uh, kind of.
Ryan: I guess it depends on your feelings sometimes. Yeah.
Kat: I think the shaving scene's kind of sexual. I know Josh doesn't need to see that, but I think it is.
Josh: Oh, no, I get it. I just am very upset because the programming director at Enzian, the art house theater, we work with this man, after watching this shaving scene, said that it was one of the most erotic things he'd ever seen, and that horrified me.
Ryan: Yeah, that's kind of gross.
Josh: It has the mouthfeel of when someone calls their partner their lover. I can't put my finger on exactly why I hate it, but I fucking hate it.
Ryan: Yeah. It's opening a door, and, um, you find out something that you don't really want to know. Yeah.
Kat: When someone describes having sex as making love.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, well, that's discovering someone's Christmas Kink that you really wouldn't want to know. Or knowing that someone discovered a new kink right next to you.
Josh: Right.
Laura: Something they never knew. Turns them on, and then they turn over to you, be like, hey, I'm really turned on by this now.
Ryan: Of all the things, though, I think shaving is not that bad. Out of all of the things.
Josh: Oh, I don't think it's bad. I just think it's gross to refer to anything as erotic, like, without a certain level of flippancy, uh, or something. I don't know.
Ryan: It kind of makes it feel immediately quite icky.
Josh: Erotic thriller is what I think of, and I think of, um. I don't know fatal attraction? No, I think of, like, disclosure. Something like, kind of filthy like that. That's what I think of when.
Ryan: I mean, that's a two for, though. Disclosure, that's also an erotic thriller plus a VR adventure.
Laura: That is on my list. I made a letterbox list of VR films.
Ryan: Uh, fucking movie.
Laura: I want it to be comprehensive.
Josh: You have it? I have it on Blu ray. Oh, no.
Laura: I'm like, I have the list. I think I have it on maybe one of those. Flip the paper.
Ryan: Last time we watched it, we saw it on Italian tv.
Laura: Yeah, we watched it in Italian.
Ryan: I watched it in Italian.
Laura: It was awesome.
Ryan: It was good. Yeah, it was good.
Josh: Yeah. We're talking about disclosure now.
Laura: Uh, the whole system is like a filing cabinet. A virtual filing cabinet. It's the most boring, stupid thing ever.
Ryan: It's like the NJ.
Laura: I got to get to the file quicker.
Josh: It's very clearly based on a Michael Crichton novel. It's not Sci-Fi really. It kind of is, but not in his traditional sense.
Ryan: I'm a hacker now, and it also.
Josh: Is really, really respectful to, uh, what would eventually become the me too movement. M not problematic at all.
Laura: Uh, speaking of problematic, um, or not really, actually, I'm going to talk about who is in this film, and then we're just going to keep going about Wetlands, the film we're talking about.
Ryan: What a segue.
Laura: Yeah, that wasn't my best. Let's continue. Uh, Carla Juri is in this film as Helen, our main character. Uh, Christophe. This is going to be hard. Letkowski, Meret Becker and Axel Milberg.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: I got through it just fine, um, directed by David Wnendt. And before you get into David, I'm going to read this ridiculously long synopsis that basically lines out the entire film, which is what I hate, um, about synopsis and what I hate about modern day movie trailers. To learn everything. Helen is a non-conformist teenage girl who maintains a conflictual relationship with her parents, hanging out most of her time with her friend Corinna, with whom she breaks one social taboo after another. She uses sex as a way to rebel and break the conventional bourgeois ethic. After an intimate shaving accident, Helen ends up in the hospital, where it doesn't take long before she makes waves. But there she finds Robin, a male nurse who will sweep her off her feet.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: A million different ways. That this is a weird synopsis, but.
Josh: I mean, it's all technically true.
Laura: Yes, of course. But, uh, you also don't need to tell the end of the film right when you're reading about the film?
Ryan: Yeah.
Kat: I was hoping that it would just like, scene by scene be like. And then they take out their tampons and switch. And then she takes the barbecue, uh, flipper tongs and has to fish out her homemade tampon out of her friend's vagina and then gives it to her dad without washing it off. Oh, my God.
Laura: When he puts those steaks on the grill, you can tell they'd already been cooked as well.
Josh: Yeah, I know. I kind of like that. So you're really going to taste those chunks?
Laura: Yeah, well.
Josh: I think they were uterine chunks.
Ryan: They were like chicken steaks or something. Well, there's always the worry that if it's with chicken, it doesn't cook all the way through. When you put it on a barbecue.
Laura: I don't think it was chicken.
Ryan: I don't really. Yeah.
Kat: Ah, it was a lot darker. It could be pork.
Ryan: Okay, look, I'm just not aware of my meats. Then obviously get informed about your meat. Yeah, I need to know more about my meats.
Laura: The tagline of this film is get ready for, uh, uh.
Ryan: Helen.
Laura: Oh, get ready. Here she comes. She's coming for you on her longboard.
Ryan: Yeah. Fucking longboards. Christ.
Laura: Tell us about the director now.
Ryan: Cool. So David Wnendt and I'm assuming that's how we say his surname. Um, he's a German director and screenwriter. Um, so this is taken from M, the bio from Letterboxd. But mostly he's known for. He gained fame from the multi award winning Warrior from 2011. Now, I got instantly very confused when I wrote that, because Warrior from 2011 is also a movie that stars Tom Hardy about MMA. But Warrior is also the other name for Combat Girls, which is also referred to as Kriegerin, which also translates as female warrior,
Laura: Which is a film we'll probably do sometime, which I haven't seen yet. That, Josh, you said it pertains to our interests.
Josh: Yes, it's a good film.
Ryan: Um, not much really to kind of say on the man. There's not really an awful lot of stuff online. Um, in terms of, like, his films, there's only a handful. Um, he made a short in 2004 called I'm going to say this. I think it's badatag. Um, after that, 2011 is Combat girls, which Kriegerin. Uh, Wetlands came out in 2013, which is Feuchtgebiete.
Laura: I think you're doing great.
Ryan: Feuchtgebiete. I don't know. I haven't done German in a very long time. After that, he did in 2015, Look Who's Back.
Josh: That's a funny movie.
Ryan: It is, Virida. Um, the return of Hitler, which is, Er ist wieder da.
Laura: Did that play at Enzian?
Josh: I don't think so.
Laura: I don't know where I saw that then.
Josh: I don't know. I saw it at home. I finally got around to watching it at home because it's very funny.
Laura: Yeah, it's very weird.
Ryan: Two, um. 2019, you have the Sunlit Night. There is no other alternate title for that one. And in 2023, he released sun and concrete, which is Sonne und Beton. Sunlit Night.
Josh: Was that english language one with, uh, Jenny Slate, though, right?
Kat: Yes, I have seen that one.
Josh: That's pretty good.
Kat: Yeah, it was a delight.
Laura: That's nice. A delight.
Kat: Yeah. It wasn't like Wetlands.
Laura: No, not the fun, romantic romp that is Wetlands.
Ryan: Uh, roaring endorsement. Um, very good. M that kind of covers David again. I just don't really have an awful lot, um, on him. Let's just say he's a fledgling career. Um, so I am very interested in watching the Hitler awakening into the present day movie. I'm very interested in seeing that, just to see how ridiculous that seems. But, yeah, um, that covers, uh, David went, wow.
Laura: Yeah. You said he's on Instagram, doesn't have a whole lot of followers.
Ryan: He's got, like, 2000 followers on Instagram. So started following him. Um, he seems like someone who's got a very, uh, cool sense of humor.
Laura: The director of that, um, Rebecca hall permission movie hasn't accepted my friendship yet.
Ryan: Oh, what a shame.
Laura: I know.
Ryan: Yeah. Because that film was a fucking barn burner. Um, but, yeah, love, ah, to have spoken to him a little bit more about that one.
Laura: Um, so this film was based off of the 2008 novel by, uh, the same name, uh, by Charlote Roche. And it was a top selling novel worldwide that year. Um, incredibly controversial in Germany, where people would know the book without even having read it.
Josh: Yeah, it's like 50 shades of gray, level of fame. I, um, didn't care for the book, actually.
Laura: You did read it?
Josh: Yeah, I own it. I have a copy of it. You want to borrow it?
Laura: I do.
Josh: Uh, I don't care for it personally.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: It, uh, may be a translation thing, though, because it felt like an even more language used in it was even more immature than a Chuck Palink book. Okay. It felt like a 13 year old learned a bunch of new dirty words and just used them ad nauseam. And I didn't get much out of it, but I also read that, like, ten years ago. So maybe it's worth a revisit.
Laura: Okay. Apparently, when the press found out it was being made into a film, um, they said that whoever's going to play this role is a disgrace to human beings. M and so Carla jury was like, that's all I needed to know. I had to tell this story. I had to get in there.
Ryan: Wow.
Laura: Um, the author didn't want to get involved in the making of the film, but she picked the producer. Um, and the producer knew the director because of his graduation film from film school, which I think was combat girl. And they got together and did the thing. Uh, the producer wanted the film to be a mix of nine songs and train spotting. That was his goal.
Ryan: You can definitely see that.
Josh: Yeah, I can see that.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Oh, yeah. Like that toilet scene.
Josh: I mean, it's certainly funnier than nine songs.
Ryan: Yeah. Nine Songs falls under the bracket of being just a little bit. Just a little bit dull.
Josh: Yeah, it's just fucking music. Uh, and it's not. I don't know. It's fine.
Laura: Yeah, there's sex in that one, too.
Josh: Lots. Yeah, it's all unsimulated sex in that.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Cool.
Ryan: Um, yeah. Uh, the train spotting references, I feel like, are maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit too literal, but, yeah, there's very much a kind of a tonal thing that's very, uh, relatable here from the train spotting stuff.
Laura: How can we make that bathroom look more disgusting? Yeah. Being barefoot, I think, would kind of do that.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: The wading through the inch of water. Gray water.
Kat: I was like, are there stairs down to the sewer?
Laura: Yeah. Where is she? Confused. That opening sequence is fun, though.
Ryan: I mean, there's references within that first ten minutes to Fight Club and, uh, train spotting as well, like that opening and things. Um, yeah. Uh, this is a rip roaring ride through, uh, the sexual escapades, uh, of Helen, effectively, um, I don't know.
Laura: She's just a sad girl who wants her parents to get back together, okay? That's all. And she'll do anything it takes to her butthole to get that to happen.
Ryan: That's very true. You just fuck around with her butthole an awful lot. I mean, hemorrhoids. The struggle is real. Let's be fair.
Laura: I don't know. Sorry.
Ryan: Nobody knows.
Josh: I've not had them.
Laura: Who's got hemorrhoids in the room? Raise your hand.
Ryan: Yeah, I don't think so.
Kat: I mean, uh, my dad has told me a little bit about his hemorrhoids, which I didn't want to know.
Josh: I want to know about Keith's hemorrhoids. Can you tell me or can you give me your dad's number?
Kat: Ask him about it next time you see him.
Josh: No, I don't want to text him right now.
Kat: In person.
Laura: The progress hemorrhoids.
Kat: Tell me about these rubber bands.
Ryan: They put m on your hemorrhoid time. Face it. What fucking rubber bands?
Kat: It's called, like, banding or something.
Josh: Cuts off the circulation, and then they.
Ryan: Just drop off on their own tags.
Laura: Yeah, like skin tag. Uh, rubber bands for your butthole. Yeah.
Kat: I told you that I knew too much.
Laura: Um.
Ryan: Oh, yeah.
Josh: I'm curious how it feels. Is it bad? Do you think it hurts?
Kat: I don't know.
Ryan: It can't hurt any more than they already hurt, probably.
Josh: Maybe it becomes that good kind of pain.
Laura: Like itching an itchy butthole.
Josh: I was going to say, like fisting.
Laura: But, yeah.
Kat: I was thinking, like, the doctor sticking his finger into her blister and popping it in his own good. Like, not even warning her or anything. Uh, are all the doctors in Germany that unethical?
Laura: Because no gloves.
Kat: Uh, he just kind of went in there and just poked her butthole immediately.
Laura: Not saying Germany is very much a.
Ryan: No nonsense country, and I quite respect that. I do like the fact that he popped it and immediately goes, there you go. You should be pain free. Um, no, hemorrhoids are awful. Um, but, yeah, there's a lot of things I couldn't deal with in the film that I appreciated because it really fucked with my OCD a fair amount. Like, this was very much the kind of, if you have OCD, you're going to have real problems with what Helen's doing to herself.
Laura: I'm trying to remember the one scene that you were like, this is killing me.
Ryan: I mean, it's when it started on the toilet, and she was like, I think she's going to do something. She's going to put something in her mouth, like, she's going to do something. And I'm just like, no. There was so many different boundaries crossed for me as an incredibly hygienic and sterile individual that I, um, am, that I felt physically sick, like, watching the film. And I do have to respect it for that because I do like things that gross me out a little bit.
Josh: So how do you feel about in two weeks you're going to watch it while eating food?
Ryan: That depends on if I'm available that day.
Laura: Suddenly I'm not available.
Ryan: I, uh, might be working, because I can work either seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
Laura: For whatever reason, depending on your whim.
Ryan: Depending on what they give me. I mean, I wouldn't mind coming to Uncomfortable Brunch, but, yeah, I don't know if I'd have that much of a problem. Thing is, whenever I do go to Uncomfortable Brunch and I do eat, I do end up just staring at my food, not the screen, until that food is gone.
Laura: I think that it'll be a, uh, real pleasure. I'm excited.
Kat: I took it for a test run. I ate my lunch while I was watching it earlier, and it was not great. She's just sliding her vagina on the dirty, dirty seat, and I'm just like.
Josh: We'Re talking a bologna sandwich. Yeah, extra mayonnaise.
Kat: And then her just, like, talking about cottage cheese and wafting her pussy scent at the guy.
Josh: Yeah, the pheromones got to attract a mate.
Laura: I liked that they were just, like, sticking their fingers in and rubbing it, like, perfume on their neck.
Kat: I've seen that on Instagram and TikTok. Like, Gen Z doing that.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, wow. These days, I remember going out with a few ladies who are maybe a little bit more liberal than me, and they're just like, free woods women. Like, they would run in the forest naked, and that's just not what I would do. But they told me that they'd get down there and they'd give it a sniff and they'd give it a taste. And I was like, wow, you guys are so free.
Ryan: I'm going to ask this question, and I don't know if this is, like, crossing a line or what. Uh, but what would you describe the optimum smell being?
Laura: Okay. I don't think there is much of one.
Ryan: Okay.
Josh: I mean, you can't smell yourself.
Ryan: Is it quite a relatively unique smell? As in, like, it's something that you could discern between, say, I don't know, peaches, or say, I don't know, uh, fish, for example. What would it be?
Laura: I'm sure it's the same as a man, depending on your diet, exercise, your hydration levels, your cleanliness. Um, I think, uh, the way you fit your clothes. Like, if your clothes are too tight. Anything like the weather. Yeah.
Kat: Because, uh, it's only if you have a yeast infection that you're going to notice there's, like, a scent. It smells like bread.
Ryan: Okay. Because it smells like bread infection. French baggage.
Laura: Like, fresh, warm bread.
Josh: Rye bread.
Ryan: Warmer.
Kat: Yeah, it's a marble rye.
Ryan: Oh, uh, nice.
Laura: The type of bread depends on the. Some people have more of a sourdough maybe it is more of a sourdough question.
Ryan: I did wonder.
Laura: No, because it is quite personal to each individual. Uh, but I do think that you're right.
Ryan: It led me on to, like, there was the smelly vagina story, which is when, uh, I went home with a lady and she still had her underwear on. And I remember opening her legs up, and I literally was bombarded with the stench of, like, a fish market. It was so incredibly strong that, I.
Josh: Mean, I like fish.
Ryan: I was at least three or 4ft away from her. And I was like, no, you're okay. And I closed it. And I remember kissing her on the forehead, and I was like, I think it's good time for us to just maybe go to sleep. And I just felt.
Laura: Closed the market.
Ryan: I closed the market up early. I was like, no, there's no sale today.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Um, I'm making a return, um, to the doctor. Well, the smelly dick story was someone that I remember from university. I have to balance it up because I can't just shit on the vagina, um.
Kat: On the guy's chest.
Laura: I wasn't sure if she actually got that turd out.
Ryan: Yeah, I don't know if she got it out.
Kat: She had to because they were, like, making fun of her at school.
Laura: Maybe they were making fun of her because she couldn't get a turd out.
Ryan: We'll get to that. We'll get to that. I'm going to finish the dick because I can't just sit on the vagina. I have to get on the dick. So there was a girl who was quite promiscuous, that I remember, and she was having plenty of relationships with many of the people who were living in the halls. We were quite young at the time.
Laura: Cool.
Ryan: And I remember I got a hate message from her once because I'd, uh, ignored her advances. And I was with somebody else at the time, and I got a hate message from her saying, like, will you enjoy that whore? And she slid it under my door. But she also told me a story of when she took a guy home. I think his name was Allie. He always wore the same jeans and he always wore the same leather jacket, and that was always a bad sign.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: And supposedly she took his trousers down and this repugundant stench came out and she literally reclothed him and basically told him to leave because the guy didn't wash his junk. This seemed to be more hygiene stories.
Laura: Maybe you've answered a lot of questions you had.
Ryan: I guess. I think it's just because I was a curious little plum. And I just wanted to try and figure out some things about what was going on. Yes. I said plum. Um, but the thing is, if you shit on someone's belly, it's not a Cleveland steamer. I don't think. I think it has to be on their chest. And also it's on their chest. But then you sit in the shit that's on their chest and you rub it back and forth. That's a Cleveland steamer.
Laura: Oh, okay.
Ryan: Yeah.
Kat: Oh, that makes way more sense.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: And I remember being at the pub.
Laura: Once, rolling a carpet steamer.
Josh: I get it. I always just assumed that it was so hot that there was steam coming off of it.
Laura: Yeah. Maybe that's what I run.
Josh: And simply almost or something like that.
Kat: There's the street steamers.
Josh: I think.
Ryan: That'S what I remember. Yeah. They didn't refer to it as a Cleveland steamer in the movie. It's just shit on my stomach.
Josh: Yeah. Famous in Germany.
Ryan: Yeah, in Germany. Well, I don't.
Josh: Know. Like, oh, yeah, Cleveland, Ohio. Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
Laura: Like from the Drew Carey show.
Kat: I mean, they probably would if they watched any pop culture stuff because they talk about Cleveland and rock, like flee to the cleave.
Josh: Right? Yeah. I don't know.
Laura: They watch Drew Carey show.
Josh: I just feel like we're going to figure it out.
Ryan: Now.
Josh: It's probably not as, uh, universally popular as, like, Los Angeles or New York, San Francisco.
Laura: Do German people, San Francisco steamers, big.
Josh: Cities all over the world that you just know? I wouldn't know a random working, uh, class city.
Ryan: All right. Urban dictionary is going to answer that. The first thing that comes up, though, is, like, Cleveland range, uh, convention and, uh, countertop cookers and stuff. Anyway, we'll look at urban dictionary. There's also pictures, um, which I don't want to look at. Um, okay, so the Cleveland steamer is far more specific than the listings I've seen here. Sexual act by nature, fetish. The cleanless steamer is one person craps on another person's chest and very important. Then sits down and rocks back and forth like a steamroller. Okay, so that's also very important. I drew a diagram at the pub. M. Yes, it was very important. I drew a diagram of it when I was at the pub a few years ago, uh, back home, just so people knew.
Laura: That's nice.
Ryan: And I gave it to the barman. Do you think it still has it? He, uh, better.
Laura: Um, I have more notes, and then we can talk about the film, maybe. So the director said that there were many challenges during kind of like the production pre production, because, like I'd said, even if people hadn't read the book, they knew of it. So, for example, finding the location of the small church scene was nearly impossible because people were really scared of the title of the film. Um, so they just didn't want to be involved with it. And the film debuted at the Lacarno film festival. And this is where Carla, who plays Helen, grew up. So her mom would be, like, out at the store getting groceries, and she saw the mom of an old friend of hers, and that mom tried to hide behind grocery shelves because it was just like, it's too much. It's too much to deal with. Oh. To prep for the role. Uh, Carla went back to high school for two and a half weeks. She was 27 years old, and, um, nobody knew. And she had to make a fake Facebook profile account because people are asking to be her friend, and she had to really dig in.
Kat: So she never been kissed.
Laura: She never been kissed. It undercover went, ah, to school and only, like, the head director of school.
Josh: The remake we need.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, how many instances were they, uh, at the school for, though? Not many.
Laura: No. This is just to prep for being.
Ryan: Oh. To get herself into the mindset, uh.
Laura: Of a high school kid.
Ryan: High school kid. Right.
Laura: Ten years out of high school, I guess.
Ryan: Yeah. Because fucking. Yeah, well, high school is a fucking horrible place. I guess you just have to remind yourself of how fucking shitty it is. Um. Okay, I see. I get you.
Laura: The movie starts out with a warning from a, uh, letter to the editor of build online that says, this book shouldn't be read or adapted to film, which I like a lot.
Josh: I don't think it's that crazy, though. No, I mean, it's funny and it's gross and it's all these things, but I've seen far worse, of course. Far worse. Like, probably this week.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Because there's not a malicious bone in its body in this movie whatsoever. It feels relatively quite, um, innocent. And it's like a lot of curiosity, and it's kind of very freeing.
Josh: I had an old friend who, uh, after he saw it, he said, this movie is, uh, incredibly filthy, Amelie. And I thought that was very accurate assessment.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Because, uh, she does go into the different idiosyncrasies of her parents and how it's kind of affected her relationships with other people, because I think the only malicious people in the story are her parents. Um, like her mom. M saying jump.
Josh: Yeah.
Kat: And then she moves out of the way and she's like, don't trust anyone, even your parents. And I'm like, oh, my God.
Laura: And then it's kind of like, you don't know. There's one point where they're like, oh, you tend to lie a lot. And she's like, do I? I don't know. And where she can't even remember what's real and what's not. Sometimes there's these dream sequences, and I'm like, did that actually happen? Like, the mom, like, cutting her eyelashes in the night because someone complimented her beautiful child eyelashes?
Ryan: Yeah. Because too many compliments starts to poison your mind, basically. It doesn't prepare you for the real world.
Laura: I figured they were all, like, actual occurrences.
Kat: Those seem like childhood memories.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Uh, especially, like, the sunburn thing of the negligent father, because he's too focused on building a sandcastle. So he just puts it sort of on her shoulder, and that's it.
Ryan: And it's the worst fucking thing ever. It's just a pile of sand with things sticking out of it. Yeah, he's a fucking engineer as well. And it's like, yeah, here's this pyramid with a whole bunch of fucking broom handles sticking out of it. Um, yeah, I don't know. I can relate to feeling neglected by my parents and then them being like, yeah, this is character building, so just deal with it. I can fully understand where she's coming from.
Laura: Doesn't she get knocked into the pool by her dad's dick?
Ryan: Yes.
Kat: Uh, I think it was his knee.
Ryan: Laughed her in the face knees either.
Laura: Have a shit ton of money or a big dick. And he had both. And then he was swinging his dick around, and I thought it's like he was wearing a swimsuit, but I thought it slapped her in the face and she fell into the pool.
Kat: No, I think he hit her with his knee. But maybe I wishful thinking. We'll find out in a few weeks when we see it on the big screen because we always miss stuff.
Laura: Dad. Dick in some m swim shorts.
Ryan: Yeah. I like to think that maybe that didn't happen.
Laura: Yeah, but in the context of the film, it would make sense.
Ryan: Yeah, it would. Well, certainly there's a.
Laura: It also goes back and forth with the pool.
Ryan: She's got a really strong basis for the neuroses in her family.
Laura: Yes, they sure do.
Ryan: Yes. Very strong foundation.
Kat: Do they ever, um, go into how she sterilized herself? I can't remember.
Laura: No. And I'm glad that you brought that up because I don't think they ever did.
Kat: She mentions it several times.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: She mentions that she sterilized herself and that her mom doesn't know, um, because she doesn't want to have kids, because her great grandmother, grandmother, mother, her, are all first borns and neurotic. And so she didn't want to bring a child into this world. But it never really specifically says what she meant by that.
Laura: And the way that she says it sounds like it's something simple that you can just do. Like, oh, I just went ahead and sterilized myself. Like how?
Kat: Put some, uh, hand, like, purell in there.
Laura: Just pump some purell right down in there. I don't know.
Kat: I mean, she's a teenager also.
Laura: She has no problem with sticking stuff down there.
Ryan: Yeah, she's sticking all sorts of objects down there. Um, well, she does, like, later on in the film, she does say she wouldn't mind having a child. But then I completely dreamed of it.
Laura: She always dreamed of it.
Ryan: And then I guess, yeah, because she's talking in the past tense. So she has kind of sterilized herself. But then how would she know that she's sterilized herself? I think. Isn't that the dichotomy of this situation? Fair is that she says she has because she wouldn't want to have a children, bring a child into this lather, this lather of, uh, neurotics in her bloodline. Um, yeah, I guess she wouldn't mind having a child, but the child's going to be fucked. Pretty much. Pretty much fucked up.
Laura: Well, all right. We learned from our parents.
Ryan: Anal fissure. Has any of us ever had an anal fissure before?
Kat: No, none of us have had hemorrhoids, so I don't think, have you, Ryan?
Ryan: Well, anal fissure is different from hemorhoids. It's like a little cut on the inside wall of your asshole.
Kat: Well, I've had neither, and it bleeds.
Ryan: And it's incredibly painful.
Laura: Okay. The way you're speaking about it just sounds like I'm really sorry for you.
Ryan: No, I've never had an anal fisher before. At least, I'm not aware that I have.
Laura: You would know, considering how it's depicted in the film.
Ryan: I think it's like the worst. Yes, like one of the worst feelings.
Laura: Oh, and she goes to school and dripping blood, dripping down her leg.
Ryan: It's awful.
Kat: And everyone probably thinks she had her period, but it's her butthole.
Ryan: There you go, another film reference, Carrie. There you go. Except it's coming out of her ass.
Laura: Yeah, or like south park. Remember that? Where all the boys, uh, were wondering why they weren't getting their periods, and then their buttholes were bleeding. No.
Ryan: What was that? Was that the chipotle episode or is that different? Right, okay. Because they were, like, bleeding out their assholes when they read in Chipotle. Yeah. So I don't know. Either way, why don't we just talk.
Laura: About the first penis scene?
Ryan: Yay.
Laura: Coming in about 26 minutes and 50 seconds. Um, does anyone else want to set this up? Do you want to set up the scene? I don't remember the gentleman's name.
Ryan: Her coworker, Canel Canal.
Laura: Lovely.
Ryan: They are working. Where are they working? Like, what is she doing?
Josh: I think it's like, meat packing.
Ryan: Meat packing? My first job, I almost worked in a meat packing factory out of, uh, living interview. Ah, yeah, well, that wasn't an interview because I did say to my dad, I said, I don't know, I think I could maybe find something better. And he's like, you better. And I'm like, I don't know if I really want my first job to be a meat packing factory job.
Josh: That seems like a great first job.
Laura: My first job.
Josh: Because everything after that will be awesome.
Laura: Yeah. My first job was pizza, uh, place. But I got free pizza every night, so it's pretty great. And it's pretty much been downhill from there.
Josh: I mean, my first is land surveying, but really my first high school job, like I did while I was in school, was, um, an ice cream shop. And that was awesome.
Laura: Free ice cream.
Josh: Best job I ever had. Nobody goes and buys ice cream mad. No, customers are super nice.
Ryan: Or at least if they are mad, they're going to be happy when they get the ice cream, right?
Josh: And if they give me shit, I can always just bribe them with more.
Laura: Ice cream, like sprinkles or something.
Josh: Yeah, it's fine.
Ryan: I mean, to give you my special sprinkles. Yeah, that's the next dick scene. But anyway, um, let's continue on with canel. So let's just say that it's like a meat packing factory. They're stacking meats. He just comes up to her from behind and says, uh, if she wants.
Kat: To get shaved, well, he asks her if she's shaved.
Ryan: Yes.
Kat: Which is like a weird question to ask someone, especially in the middle of a shift, like the teenager that you work with at the meat Packing plant. Are you shaved?
Laura: No.
Kat: Come over later.
Josh: I mean, I've asked every one of my colleagues ever.
Laura: I'd like to give you a good shave.
Ryan: A few weeks ago, when I was at work.
Kat: This is a weird segue.
Ryan: We had a couple of guys from another property over at our property, one of the guys who works at ours, he came up to me and he was like, you'll never guess what I heard. And I was like, what? He was like, those two guys who were here, they started talking to each other, and one of them just went to the other one and said, you're looking real sexy tonight. He was like, yeah, you're looking real sexy too. And then he was like, I can sense a bit of tension kind of going on, and everything seems about. They keep on smiling at each other. And I was like, look, that's lovely. But I was like, wondering if we can try and feed that into our general introductions in our normal shift days that we just kind of see each other and it's like, oh, you're looking sexy.
Laura: So you're going to level that up and just ask your coworkers if they're shaved?
Ryan: Yeah, well, I mean, I'm going to be 100% certain since they work in the audiovisual industry. No one's shaved great at all.
Laura: Cool.
Ryan: Everyone's maybe a little stinky because they're definitely one. Definitely not getting paid enough. And second of all, shave their pubic.
Laura: Hair or to take a shower, or.
Ryan: To afford any sort of sanitary products or I would also kind of point out that they are too angry to do anything about.
Josh: See, I only shave my pubic hair when I'm angry. It's with a straight razor. I do not use shaving cream.
Ryan: And it's to the skin. Yeah, it's bald.
Laura: And if you would wait and got ice cream before, you wouldn't have to.
Ryan: And it's the perfect circle.
Josh: It hurts a lot.
Laura: So when she gets to his place, he immediately starts undressing her.
Ryan: Mhm.
Laura: And then he takes off his clothes. Um, and where you can see he has an erection.
Ryan: He does have an erection, which is.
Laura: So fun and rare.
Josh: So fun and rare that you think it was real?
Ryan: I'm going to say, yeah, I do think that.
Laura: And I don't have concrete evidence, but based on the information I have about the spinach pizza bukaki.
Josh: Oh, I do know about that.
Laura: I believe that it probably is.
Ryan: Yeah, it's good. But then he put on like a headlamp and he starts to go spelunking or cave diving. I loved it because the only reason I found this funny is it's like an in joke between me and Laura is that Laura bought one of those lamps to help her try and find the bathroom in the dark. Yeah, I did, um, when we lived in our old place, because flats in Edinburgh can be certainly the old ones, they can be more like mazes. And we had a separate shower room and sink and also a separate toilet area.
Laura: Uh, the toilet was just one room only. A toilet. No sink or anything. Then you would walk down the hall to get to that, and it was.
Ryan: Like a separate door that was sandwiched between, like, four or five other doors in the same hallway. So in the dark, you probably would have had more of a trouble. Yeah.
Laura: Little headlamp. So I could go to the toilet. I got to pee at night sometimes.
Ryan: And I took that joke and I put it in a film about someone who was, like, going cave diving. Yeah, going cave diving. Trying to look for the fucking bathroom in the dark. But, uh, yeah, no, I did find that funny.
Laura: Yeah. Headlamp boner.
Ryan: Headlamp boner, dude. I mean, that scene itself, it's relatively quite erotic. Yeah. It's quite sensual in a weird way. There was a slight gentle. And there was a slight ickiness to the whole thing because you're just kind of like, I have no idea how old she is.
Josh: But it's okay. We looked it up ahead before recording. It was fine.
Laura: The age of consent in Germany, which is 14.
Josh: He didn't, ah, put it in her. It's fine.
Laura: Well, yeah, that's the thing, is, because.
Josh: She goes, you can poke her on the outside.
Laura: He's like, do you want free? I don't remember exactly what she said, but she's like, are we going to have sex now? And he's like, you're too young for that.
Ryan: Which.
Laura: That made it more gross.
Ryan: It did.
Laura: You could.
Ryan: It's like, how do you make this moment worse than it already is? And it did not quell.
Josh: His ethics. Actually made it worse.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Fuck yeah.
Laura: Just do it.
Ryan: Uh, just have sex with the child.
Laura: She's not a child. Also, she does not look like she's 18 years old. She looks like she's 27.
Ryan: She does. Yeah.
Laura: Her face is adequately her age.
Ryan: She's not been cast for age. She's been cast for the ability to do the things that she does in this film. Yes, for the most part. Do you think she did her own longboarding? That was the only other thing I was kind of interested in.
Laura: She maybe did.
Ryan: She probably did. Yeah.
Laura: Not the cool sick tricks like in the beginning.
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, they're not cool, sick tricks. There's no sick tricks happening on a fucking longboard. I'm sorry, but yeah, uh, um, sorry.
Laura: Hating on longboards.
Ryan: I don't like longboards.
Laura: They're just a little bit longer than a skateboard.
Kat: Yeah, I don't understand the skateboard problem.
Ryan: Skateboards are cool.
Laura: It's for transportation, not for sick tricks.
Ryan: Doesn't matter. You still look like a dork on a fucking long board. I'm sorry. Um, okay, well, I mean, no one's yet. No one's going to go up to her and be like, oh, you fucking doing on the long board?
Josh: Yeah, the open, uh, hospital gown fucking.
Ryan: Yeah, she was fucking skater dudes. Anyway, she gave that dude a handy. Mhm. Like at the beginning of the movie.
Laura: That's the one. She was wafting her cottage cheese, uh.
Kat: Vaginal aura, and then she kind of like spreads out her fingers with his semen all over him.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: Then she walks home and is like getting stuff out of the fridge. Right. That's when she was getting all their vegetables.
Josh: Yeah, it looks like, uh, dried, uh, paste.
Kat: Yeah, she's kind of like rolling it. Yeah, she's rolling the semen in between her fingers. And then she talks about how she's kind of like Dexter because she's like putting them, like trophies.
Ryan: Yes. Like those semen boogers. She was putting them. I do like how disgusting a lot of the elements in the film are. The extent to which she's effectively rebelling against the things that she's been taught by her kind of cleanliness. Mother, basically.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, and that's kind of super telling. I just love the fact of something that can make me feel, like, physically quite ill. Like, I have to respect something like that.
Laura: Tampon swapping blood sisters.
Ryan: Oh, my fucking Christ. Yeah.
Kat: That is toxic shock syndrome. Like, homemade ones, they're already used and they don't just pass them underneath, they throw them and then they fall on.
Josh: The ground of a public restroom.
Kat: Of a public restroom and then stick them in.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: She also pulls, like, hair off of one of them. What I did like, because that's the.
Josh: Upsetting part, is the hair on it.
Ryan: I thought it got all gritty because it landed on the bathroom floor. So she was like, picking off the bits of grit where I was just like, what's the fucking point at that juncture? It's defeating the purpose.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, before the homemade tampons, there's also like the drug binge and the vomit eating and all that stuff that happens beforehand.
Laura: And that cute rat, the rat that.
Kat: Gets killed by getting slammed against a wall in a bag.
Laura: We did have a pretty long conversation after that, he goes, it looks like, uh, she did a switch because the bag went out of frame.
Ryan: The bag goes out of frame and in the same shot, obviously, it looks like she's handed a separate bag. They're not killing rats.
Josh: No, they didn't kill a rat.
Laura: It looked great and horrifying.
Ryan: Yeah, it was fantastic. Um, yeah, the vomit eating. Right. The vomit eating. One of my favorite parts. One of my favorite parts of the movie is, what's her friend's name? What's Helen's friend's name?
Kat: Karina.
Ryan: Karina. Um, I think it's Michael who's the drug dealer. He comes over and he's got the best weed in Germany. And Karina goes to him and says, what do you do? And I started immediately fucking laughing. He's like, I sell drugs. Of course he does. Yeah. That was fucking brilliant.
Kat: Well, she's a teenager and she's trying to make. So.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, well, she's also wanting to get into Michael's pants, and I think she definitely does well.
Laura: Yeah, because they were going to move in together. You never see a resolution between Helen and her best friend.
Ryan: I don't think so, no. Well, yeah, I feel like she was kind of self destructive and just a little bit. Just a little bit.
Kat: Uh, I think that their friendship kind of dissolved when she was like, I'm pregnant. And then Helen was.
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
Kat: Don't do.
Laura: Like I did. Like, after the tampon thing where they just rubbed each other's period blood on their face, like warriors. I really liked it.
Josh: That actually, that image, uh, with the finger streaks, when I used to have a Facebook profile, that was my, uh, thing at the top of the page cover photo.
Laura: Yeah, I saw they use that as, like, in their press release for the film. That was like, the image of her with that. And I'm like, that's cool.
Kat: You should use one of those for promotion. Have you used.
Josh: Oh, I'm going to.
Laura: Okay, good.
Josh: Don't worry about that.
Ryan: I didn't realize this until just now, but I did a music video that had a moment in that where someone had, like, blood streaks all over because their hand just started bleeding for no apparent reason.
Laura: Not period blood.
Ryan: It wasn't period blood. I didn't take it that far. Yeah, there was kind of a stigmatic element to the video, and that was something that I did. And I was like, huh? I was doing that thing.
Laura: This is, like, the second film within a couple of months where we've got period blood on someone's face. That's pretty rad. Pretty rad.
Ryan: Oh, right. Yeah, because Saltburn, it goes downtown hell.
Laura: Uh, yeah.
Josh: Clown mouth.
Kat: And, yeah, there was like, another. There was another movie that I watched, and I can't remember the name of it, but it was like a woman is mad at another woman in a supermarket, and she sticks her hand into her pants and wipes her period blood on.
Josh: That sounds familiar.
Ryan: That's cool. Yeah.
Kat: I wish I could remember it, but it was very, like, that stuck with me. I was like, that's cool.
Ryan: Yeah. Big fuck you energy going on tampons.
Laura: Out and throwing them and stuff.
Ryan: Like, throwing them against the wall.
Laura: What is that?
Josh: That sounds familiar, too.
Ryan: I don't know.
Laura: Yeah, I'm have to go back at all my period blood films.
Kat: Maybe that happens in neighbors. IMDb list of people that happens in neighbors, too.
Josh: Oh, that's right. Yeah. And that's wrong on the window because.
Kat: It was Emma Roberts and Zac Efron. And he's like, what did you use for the blood? And she's like, what do you mean?
Laura: What a weird film to have that in. And kudos to that.
Ryan: I just had a thought in my head. I don't know if I heard this or if it's something a friend told me when we were younger, but he used to take tampons and just pee on them and see them blow up.
Josh: Why?
Ryan: I don't know.
Josh: Because we were so stupid.
Ryan: I either saw it in a movie or it was something that happened, and I was just like, all right, dude.
Laura: Well, they get really big.
Ryan: They do get real big. Like, with more moisture that you put in. So. Yeah, m. I think if she was looking at. She blow it up, and it's like, all right, cool.
Laura: So, speaking of moisture, um, why don't we talk about my favorite penis scene? And, man, oh, man. When we were watching it, Ryan, you go, oh, is that. That's it. Like, that's a dick scene. And I was.
Ryan: I was on. Yeah. When that happened, I was, huh, huh. But you then told me you were like, oh, I don't even remember that even being there. And I was like, okay, because I.
Laura: Was the first one.
Ryan: No, I would have been bitterly disappointed because we did the same thing with Saltburn where I was just like, that can't be it, right? And then you're like, no, it is not.
Laura: It's not.
Ryan: M so, I guess setting this scene up, and then I guess you guys can go to town on it. Um, just like they did on that. She gets a pizza delivered to the hospital, um, and she gets some beers and then, um, she tells this story to. It's.
Laura: Mhm. A long seduction of long.
Ryan: Yeah, the long haul of, uh, mean. He takes pictures of her fucking gaping asshole and stuff.
Laura: Too close.
Ryan: Yeah, so the doctor says.
Kat: He just says it's too close. He doesn't say, you shouldn't be taking pictures of her butthole.
Ryan: He is a German doctor. He is exactly.
Laura: His thumb in her blister. Raw dogged that blister with his thumb.
Ryan: Um, and he had like, his students and stuff. That's again, every time that doctor, he had those students in there as well, and they're just all staring at her fucking hemorrhoidal asshole. Anyway, so let's set up this story. She's telling the story to Robin about. Was it people that she knew or did she just make the whole thing up?
Laura: I think it's just a story she heard.
Ryan: So there was two girls who were ordering a pizza, and they were complaining that it was taking too long. And basically they went to go eat the pizza when it finally arrived. And they were like, it tastes funny. And supposedly their father was a food chemist, and he figures out that the thing that was making it taste funny was human semen.
Josh: But not just one person.
Ryan: Not just one person, but four different men's semen all over this pizza. And what we're treated to is the, uh, sequence of events as to how they garnish this particular pizza. And I guess the way to describe it is it's the Bukhaki circle jerk pizza scene.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Majestically shot, though.
Laura: It's beautifully shot.
Ryan: I tried to remember the music that it's set to, but it's set to classical music that everybody has heard. There's quite a lot of, um, nods to very commonly used classical music. There's even the peaches. Yeah, there is peaches. The teachers and peaches, um, track is on there. But there's a lot of classical music in the movie as well. That's, um, very good pride of place.
Laura: That scene has lived in my mind ever since that original, uncomfortable m brunch. Because. And sometimes I would forget where this came from. I just remembered four dicks coming on a pizza. And you don't forget that, right?
Josh: Um, yeah.
Laura: I wonder if someone can make me an art of that. I would hang that on a wall, just like four penises ejaculating on top of a pizza. And I could put it on the wall. I would actually love that.
Ryan: I mean, I could probably draw it.
Laura: I would love.
Ryan: I wouldn't have a problem drawing it.
Laura: Ah, my birthday is coming up.
Ryan: Yeah. It'd be like the last Supper, except it would just be uh, a single pizza and four men with their erectic.
Laura: Love it.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, spartan everywhere.
Laura: But. Yeah, it's iconic. It just really gets in there. That's why I don't remember the first scene, the first penis scene. So I'm like that. It's inconsequential to the fact that the pizza scene is coming.
Josh: Right.
Ryan: It's very clear, it's very juicy, it's very wet. And you kind of see like it's um. A kind of majestically put together sequence where it starts from the flaccid to the stiff to its very end. Conclusion. Mhm. Um.
Josh: And it's not simulated.
Laura: I have notes.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: Are you ready? I have a whole story.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: So it turns out that they used a mixture of real and fake semen. The director had said, um, so we had to find out ourselves, like what's the best way to make sperm and how to ejaculate it in front of the camera. Um, they also used 20 pizzas and a special high speed camera to capture the ejaculation in slow motion.
Ryan: Wow.
Laura: They hired porn stars because they were the only ones able to really perform when the cameras were on. Um, it just so happens that that day, um, was the one day that they had a female assistant camera woman working. She didn't know what would happen. So she was like standing next to the camera in front of a pizza and a really big penis and trying to pull the focus. Awesome.
Josh: I love that so much.
Ryan: Wow. I love it. I love how it's set up and they've got like phantom cameras running at like 2000 frames per second. And it's just like, yeah, we're going to just capture that because uh. It's like in dread when they try to do that stuff with the.
Josh: Yeah, it is just like dread.
Ryan: And it's just like, uh, uh. Think that's uh. I think that's fucking phenomenal. Because the only other movie that I can kind of remember that has that level of semen kind uh, of induced in it is. I mean, I remember specifically ishi the killer has quite a lot of semen in it. Not a lot of wanking. You don't see any dicks, but you see a lot of semen to the point where the opening title to the movie rises out of semen in that movie. Um.
Laura: Wow. I don't remember that much.
Ryan: No, because you fell asleep because you got traumatized by.
Laura: That was not. I watched the whole of ichi the killer was that other one that I fell asleep because it was the.
Ryan: Oh, I saw the devil.
Laura: I saw the devil.
Ryan: Oh, that movie's so fucking good. Yeah. Um, it's really grim.
Laura: I'll watch it again, maybe alone.
Ryan: Um, all right. In a dark room with my own.
Josh: Thoughts, with a turnip or whatever the fuck she had in the beginning of the carrot. I know it was a couple of different things. She was saying, what was work?
Kat: She had ginger.
Josh: Oh, it was ginger.
Laura: That's right.
Josh: I saw a movie once where somebody masturbated with a turnip. It was real.
Kat: It was real.
Josh: Yeah. It was in their ass. It was big. It was, uh, really uncomfortable.
Kat: I feel like that's.
Josh: Oh, yeah, I remember now. Never mind. It was an anthology movie.
Ryan: Yeah. Turnips aren't known, um, for their soft texture. Right. They're kind of fuzzy.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: And they're not. Yeah. I don't see how that would be a good time. Um, I do like a turnip. Like, I do like a turnip. Like some neeps. Like some neeps and tatties and stuff. I do like a turnip.
Laura: I do like to eat or to.
Josh: Shove in your ass to eat.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, I'm past the point of shoving things in my asshole.
Josh: Yeah, you're too old for that.
Ryan: Too old for it. Like, destroy my asshole. Putting a turnip in it.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: Her favorite.
Josh: It's going to get destroyed on its own.
Ryan: Yeah. I do enough just in my day to day life destroying my fucking asshole.
Kat: Is she putting them in her asshole or she putting them in her vagina?
Ryan: I think she's putting them in her vagina.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Because if she was putting them.
Laura: She'D.
Kat: Probably be flipped over.
Laura: If she was putting them all in her butt. She's in the bath, like, laying on.
Ryan: Her back because I was like, uh, she's young and she has hemorrhoids, but I think it was because of the shaving accidents that she'd given herself. Hemorrhoids. I think that's what that was.
Kat: Uh, no, that's usually if you sit on the toilet for too long or if it's, uh, genetic like she was talking about, but with the vegetables, if they don't have a wide base, then they're going to get stuck in her butt. So that would have been a whole.
Josh: Different, that'd be rough.
Kat: That would have been a different movie.
Josh: Um, yeah.
Ryan: Anyway, yeah.
Josh: Um, side note that I don't want to forget to tell this is that, uh, after, uh, when we showed this at brunch, um, whatever, 2016 or whatever. I don't know if you remember, my father was there. Um, and he's a big fan of the movie. He thinks it's very funny. Like, he still talks about it. Um, but I told him that story about how they ended up hiring porn actors because they were the ones performing in a very George Martin sort of deadpan way. He just goes, yeah, I can say that'd be a hard thing to fake. That was all he had to.
Ryan: So good. Yeah. Um, it's wondrous.
Josh: It's funny, actually, I have another family oriented story about Wetlands.
Laura: Yes.
Josh: Uh, the first time I saw it. Well, actually, it wasn't even the first time I saw it. Uh, it was when it played at the Florida film festival in 2014. It's a 2013 movie, so I feel like it probably played in 2014. Maybe it played in 2013. I don't know. Doesn't matter. Point is that, uh, that was the year that my baby cousin, who is 30 years old now, but at the time was 20. Um, she came out from Dallas and Samantha is amazing and she really likes fucked up stuff. She's just great. But she's very disarming because she is a very adorable petite blonde woman, uh, who looked like she was 14 when she was 20, like, very much. And she was excited to see it. Um, but I knew I had to intro the second screening. So I take her to the programming coordinator, Tim Anderson, who we all know and love.
Laura: Uh-huh.
Josh: And just said, hey, this is my baby cousin Samantha. She wants to go see Wetlands. And so they went and saw it together and that was the first time they ever met. And it was apparently great. And, uh, she still talks about it. I was hoping to get her to come out to the screening, but I don't know if it'll happen, but I don't think so. But, um, I'm going to definitely tell her to listen to this because I think that's funny.
Laura: That's wonderful.
Josh: Yeah, she was here for the whole week. It was a lot of fun because.
Laura: I don't really necessarily need to go into attempted suicide and sitting down on a knob. Knob on a hospital.
Ryan: Yeah, it's like the winch on a hospital bed.
Kat: Just like the amount of blood that happened, I was like, oh, it's the.
Ryan: Process into which I think it's very cleverly done where it's like she goes to. I mean, this is going to sound disgusting, but, um, I thought it was incredibly clever and I thought it was very effective. The fact that she slowly goes on there and it's almost as if something pops, like a little balloon and then it's just like, blood everywhere. Um, to me, m really fast down.
Laura: On that, on the doughnut.
Ryan: Oh, super fucked. Yeah, super fucked. Yeah, I winced when that happened. Um, yeah, she's incredibly fucked up, and she's really just kind of wanting. Yeah, she's just kind of wanting the time of her childhood to, uh. Yeah, she's just. She wants her parents back together and she just wants things to feel a little bit more normal, I guess. Yeah, it's incredibly sad. And I got kind of little bit of this when the father gives her the fucking pillow and he blows it up for. And she starts crying. Yeah, that's actually incredibly sweet and genuine. Um, yeah, she really cares for her puppy.
Josh: I think that's the thing that I recall, anyway. Liking about the movie that I did not care for in the book is the book felt colder and just more crass or just as crass without any of the sweetness. And I don't think it's quite good enough to be just crass. It needed that level of sweetness to be like, oh, this is actually because it is kind of a nice movie in its own way.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: This is easily one of the nicest movies we've ever shown.
Kat: Yeah. Because she is just looking for affection and she wants her parents to be back together so she can feel like the family is whole. And so her intentions and her agenda is very pure, um, in that sense. And, I don't know, just seeing the family dynamics, it kind of brings it together and makes it a full movie versus, like, two dimensional characters.
Josh: Yeah, it would feel a little hangoverish to me.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Like that kind of level of, like. I guess it's funny, but, uh, I don't care about these people or I actively dislike these people. I think that anything that gross, you have to kind of have a reason to give a shit.
Kat: Additional context, like, given there.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I think it finds a nice balance between the elements that it's depicting here. I kind of feel like if it's skewed too far in one direction, it's, like, a little bit moronic in the other direction. It's just a little bit too malicious. Um, essentially. Um, but, yeah, I think it strikes a fine balance in that it's quite funny, it's light hearted, it's quite tender at points. And then you're also like, well, that's super fucked up watching that.
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: Like the dinner party scene whenever he's talking about her apesiotomy and then she's like, getting drunk because she doesn't know what to do, and then just flashes her vagina at everybody.
Ryan: It's super. Think. Well, that's when I explained to Laura what it was like a four bird roast was that's what you were mostly interested in. I was like, that's. Yeah, it's just you stuff slightly smaller birds into bigger birds until there is no more bird to stuff, basically. Um, but, yeah, I was more concerned about that than the father's antics, I guess. Um.
Laura: Yeah, he wasn't being very nice.
Ryan: No, he was being a horrible bastard. Um.
Laura: It, uh, did make me sad how little they visited her in the hospital was pretty terrible.
Ryan: Only for like, a year. The one thing is that, um, she is able to leave. I just think she was. Yeah, she just didn't want to leave.
Laura: Two motives.
Ryan: Yeah, she had two.
Laura: Her parents there at the same time for once, which never happened except the very end. And then. Fuck that nurse.
Josh: Yeah, he's one, um, bone robin.
Laura: Yeah, get on that robin.
Ryan: And then she got both of her wishes, or both of her wishes came true.
Laura: Did. I don't love that. I don't love the incredibly tender in the rain kiss between the two of them.
Josh: There's an anal sex joke right before it, though.
Laura: That is true.
Josh: That is true.
Laura: He'll wait a little bit before he puts it in her butt. I would never put it in that butt, actually. I'd be afraid of her general flora. She said it was quite healthy, but I'm not sure.
Ryan: Um.
Josh: I just realized, though, this movie goes against our number one principle. Ah. When we program, the one rule that we try to abide by is that the audience has to feel worse when they leave than when they showed up.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Josh: Does not qualify.
Kat: Yeah, but it has enough goo in it.
Josh: Yeah, it's fine. I don't feel bad about it. It's just I didn't really put that together, that this is actually one of the rare times that we're showing a movie that you'll actually leave feeling better.
Laura: You'll have to mention that when you introduce the film. Yeah. Because I definitely felt worse when I saw I stand alone.
Josh: Good. That would be really horrifying if you didn't, like, if you came out.
Laura: I looked back on my rating on letterbox. I gave it five.
Kat: And I'm like, what?
Ryan: Like, if Laura came home and I was there and she's like, I've got some ideas. I'm like, oh, uh, you better leave.
Laura: No.
Kat: Yeah, because we chose this one to be in February. Just because we've got two pretty upsetting films. Like, I stand alone, and then killer Joe isn't.
Laura: Killer Joe is very fun.
Kat: It's fun, but you don't feel good.
Laura: No. After no.
Ryan: Or at least, yeah, you shouldn't order the chicken.
Josh: Yeah, I get a kick.
Laura: We watch Killer Joe.
Josh: Yeah. I find myself laughing at that final 1000%.
Ryan: Uh.
Josh: I've seen the stage play, though, so I've seen it with penis.
Laura: Oh, that's cool. I made sure I told my mom about it. She really likes Matthew McConaughey. And I was like, you see his balls? And she's like, oh, I'll watch it. She was like, it was interesting.
Ryan: She said, it's a damn good movie. I love killer Joe.
Laura: So, um, let's get into the ratings. Do our guests want to go first?
Ryan: It seems only polite to do so.
Laura: Visibility and context, and then we can rate the film. Did Josh want to go first?
Josh: Sure.
Laura: All right.
Ryan: Visibility.
Josh: Um, and context. First scene, uh, with the shaving scene, I would say. I would give that a three and a half. It's fine. It's not super noticeable. I mean, it's noticeable, but it's not memorable.
Laura: Right.
Josh: You put it that way. But context would be five stars. I think that it's great that there was an erect penis during that scene.
Laura: Absolutely.
Josh: Um, but overall, it just doesn't stick with me. Um, the, ah, spinach ejaculation scene, however, that is five stars across the board, like, both ways, because it's expertly executed. It's beautiful, it's horrifying, it's hilarious. Um, when the streams of semen splash into one another in slow motion, it's like watching a 40s musical. Like, that level of choreography, it's just wonderful. It was like we watched top hat.
Laura: No, if your grandmother was alive, Ryan.
Ryan: To hear that connection, uh, the Freddie steer, Ginger Rogers would have completely different meaning.
Kat: I mean, I was just thinking about, like, ghostbusters. Uh, my ratings are the same as Josh's. I wouldn't change a derivative. Um, yeah, I'm boring.
Laura: That's why I had to go first.
Kat: I was like, there's nothing that I'm going to say that's going to be more poetic than what Josh is going to say about this semen stream.
Josh: Jesus.
Laura: You found the perfect words to describe all of that jizz and hats off. Top. Hats off to you. Um. You want to go, Ryan?
Ryan: Um, yeah, I guess with that first scene, um, when you compare it to the other one, it's just like the level of focus that's in that scene. You're not really interested in Canel's erect dick for the context of what's going on in that scene. You're interested in it for the shaving. Um, it's a little bit dark. And also, I completely forgot that we saw his deck the minute he puts on, uh, the head torch. Um, for several reasons that I've already kind of covered already. Um, but yeah, um, when it comes to that bukhaki pizza scene. So let's just say the canal scene, let's just give it like three and a four or whatever and just kind of round off at three and a half for the bukaki pizza, though, for everything that's involved in it. And I think I've found myself from liking takeshi Mike stuff maybe a little bit too much. I have no issue with semen splashing all over the floor. So, um, yeah, I'd say it was five stars all over the place.
Laura: It's something that I didn't.
Ryan: Five stars getting shot about all over the shop.
Laura: Something I didn't know I wanted to see so bad. And it was done better than.
Ryan: It was. Very majestic. This is also the first time I didn't point this out. This is the first time I've ever seen Wetlands. So was watching it today very fun? It was a bit of a treat. Yes. Um, I'm the same.
Laura: It's five stars. I'm just going to go five stars because, again, something that lived in my memory ever since the first time I saw it. And it's just something that's so iconic that I sometimes forget where it came from. But now I will remember now. Um, I love it. It's wonderful.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Um, I'll go for the film. So it was weird because it's interesting looking back at ratings when you've had letterbox for so long. Because I originally, when I saw it, uh, originally I gave it three and a half and I'm like, oh, that's weird because I have a lot of fond memories and a lot of fond feelings for it. And then most of the way through the movie, I'm like, this is five stars. This is five stars. But then I'm like, and I know in the book, she's in the hospital almost the whole time. And so it does feel a bit like I want you to not be in the hospital. So thank goodness for the flashback scenes so you can escape that area. Um, anyway, I settle on a four. I go between a four and four and a half because I do really like it, but, um, I'm going to sit on a four because I really do like it. But maybe I could have a little bit of less of the hospital. But that's just how I feel about that.
Kat: Okay, I'm going to go. Um, I would give it a four and a half. Uh, the reason is I like everything about it until the end because I think it's a little trite. Um, but I think everything else works really well and it has good timing. And, uh, she's a charming character and I liked all of it.
Josh: For me, this is a bit of a strange one, because usually if something's five stars, I'm usually really gung ho about it. This is a soft five star for me. Okay. I, um, love everything about it. I watch it pretty frequently, like at least once a year.
Laura: Mhm.
Josh: I have fond memories of every single way that I've seen it theatrically. It is a five star movie to me, but not one that I'm going to scream from the mountaintops, as it were, which I know is kind of not a great endorsement, but it really is. I think it's great. It's a movie that really, really love. Um, and like I said, watch pretty frequently.
Laura: And who knows? Well before Ryan goes, because he hasn't done his yet. But it's always totally different when you have an audience, which is why some of the films that I probably didn't even like in the first place, if I've seen them, uh, uh, at, uh, Uncomfortable Brunches that you've done, I'm like, oh, my. Like, this changes everything. It's the same thing when you watch shame Ryan, remember? Because you're like, I don't know, it's like, fine. And then you saw it at brunch, you're like, holy shit, there's so many things because you're totally focused, you're in it, and you have that whole kind of energy throughout the room, which makes it a completely different thing.
Josh: These cinemas important, would you.
Ryan: Enjoy? I enjoy films in the cinema more than I do watch them on a, uh, tv because I sometimes find it hard to focus when I'm at home, of course. But I don't see myself changing my score for wetland, seeing it on a big screen.
Laura: All right, let's hear it.
Ryan: Honestly, I mean, I gave it four. I think I reviewed it. I said it's kind of like a super fucked up millennial version of diving Belle and the Butterfly, where she's in a hospital bed, but it's like, she could leave. She's not like paralyzed, like that poor gentleman is in that movie. But, uh, yeah, I think for me, it just kind of comes down to the fact that we're in the hospital for a little bit too long. And I feel like it's unavoidable. But I'm also kind of like. I love all the flashbacks, I love all the stories, and I love all the things that color the thing in, but it's maybe just a little bit too long. So I just don't give it the highest amount of praise. I mean, maybe it's better in the cinema when you maybe focus on it a little bit more, but I just feel like maybe it gets dropped down a little peg. So I did think, oh, maybe it's a three and a half, but I have to respect something that makes me feel as icky as it did when it finishes.
Josh: Yeah. And I think that something about the cinematic experience, the theatrical experience of it, is not necessarily your attention level that you're giving the film itself. It's, uh, how you're bouncing off of the rest of the emotions in the room from the people you're watching it with.
Ryan: It's a big audience participation movie, very much like, just kind of how other people are reacting to the same things that you're watching, I think is relatively quite important.
Josh: I do think it's good that you watched it beforehand because you'll be able to kind of anticipate those moments, uh, and be able to pay attention to the audience.
Ryan: Yes. During those moments, the anticipation for it will be interesting. Well, I think it's different with shame, though. I feel like shame for me became. I maybe began to realize what shame was that other people saw the first time. So it just took me a little bit longer to appreciate shame. And I feel like that's been the case for any film that I really, really love now is that it takes me a little bit longer to appreciate, um, because I had the same thing with old boy. I thought old boy was good the first time I saw it and then I watched it 20 times after that, and I think it's brilliant. So, um, that's kind of the only other kind of shining example of it. But, yeah, I think four stars is good enough. I don't think four stars is bad. I just think there's a couple of things maybe, like, narratively in it that I don't dig that much. But, yeah, I don't think it really matters that much.
Laura: We liked it.
Ryan: Yeah, we did like it.
Laura: I like it a lot. I'm glad that it's coming in the mail soon and that I can watch all the special features. I want to learn all the things. It'll be here on Monday.
Ryan: Great.
Laura: Um, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at Uncomfortable Brunch on February 4 of 2024.
Josh: Going to be awesome.
Laura: 2424.
Ryan: Mhm.
Laura: Yay. Here we go. Um, if you live in the states and do your dates, like, 42442. Yeah. Two, four. That works. My God, I'm really sorry. Well, thank you guys for coming, and I'm glad we got to talk about Wetlands, which is our 69th episode.
Josh: Is it? Fuck yeah.
Ryan: 69 dudes.
Laura: Party on. No. Sixty nine s in this film.
Josh: That's what it's missing. Maybe it is. Four and a half.
Ryan: See, there are things.
Laura: Butthole kisses and butthole pleasures and butthole fissures.
Josh: Um, all right, way to be redundant.
Laura: If you had a drink or if you had a quarter for every single time that they talked about anal fissures, I think you'd have at least $2 beer.
Ryan: Brock and goats, right? Yeah.
Laura: Cool.
Josh: If I had a nickel, I'd have $0.85.
Laura: All right, cool. I'm shutting this down. Um, coming to you from the dirtiest toilet in Berlin. I've been Laura.
Kat: I'm Katie.
Josh: Josh.
Ryan: Ryan.
Laura: Wow. Friends, what a pleasure.
Josh: Thanks for having us. It's always a blast.
Laura: Thank you. And thanks for bringing your new dog, Katie. It's very handsome.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, uh, he was very involved in this episode of the podcast. This is the only time you ever heard him.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Cool.
Laura: All right. Uh, bye bye.
Ryan: Bye. Bye bye.
Laura: How do you say it in German?
Ryan: Uh, cheers. So.
Laura: Careful with that, man.
Ryan: Sorry, m. I'm like, I'm really tight as well, for some reason. This is like that. I don't want to move the. Don't want to move the thing.
Kat: Not like this movie.
Ryan: No. Uh, everything loose.
Josh: Loose. One big mess.
Laura: Wide open.
Kat: Wide open.
Ryan: We're all going to get old, and everything's going to get looser.
Kat: She's not old.
Ryan: No, she's not.
Laura: She's making her asshole old.
Ryan: Yeah, she's fucked her asshole beyond repair, pretty much.
Laura: Anal incontinence.
Ryan: That's like, the scariest thing. I had it. There was a guy at university who had so much anal sex that it was just falling out of him.
Laura: He had it too. Then prolapse?
Ryan: Uh, no. Pooh would just topple out of him without.
Kat: He was literally incontinent.
Ryan: His asshole was just at a wide angle the entire time.
Josh: Wide set.
Ryan: Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, everyone's just like, oh, his jeans are going brown. That's what I remember hearing.
Laura: Everyone's entitled to their own butthole pleasures.
Ryan: They are. But this was obviously having a profound effect on him.
Josh: He had to cork it up.
Ryan: He did. Yeah.
Laura: You got to dip it.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, got to diped.