Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick is perhaps best known for his recent and somewhat controversial expose of the draconian structure of the MPAA ratings board with This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Today, boutique DVD label Zeitgeist is putting out a significantly more controversial (and definitely unrated) documentary which Dick made in 1984: Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surrogate. While the packaging of the DVD emphasizes the ‘porno’ angle of the film, this is more than a little misleading of the actual film, which de-emphasizes any quick-fix erotic charge for a more human and complicated look at the emotions, but the intimacies and insecurities, of sex with a ‘hired’ partner. The elephant in the room may be whether or no Ms. Sullivan is a Freudian-laced prostitute, but the manner and execution of the documentary shows a fair bit to the contrary, offering up Sullivan’s journey as being as ‘in treatment’ as much, or moreso than her clients.
It is the early 1980s in Los Angeles and it seems everyone is in therapy of some sort. Hell, the therapists are in therapy. And this is, oddly enough, what elevates Private Practices to a top shelf documentary along the lines of Capturing The Friedmans or the Up series. The center of the is the sex surrogate herself, Maureen Sullivan. She makes her living through recommendations of regular therapists who have clients with one kind of sexual dysfunction or another. The two men that the documentary focuses on are Kipper who is 25 and has extreme issues with intimacy and initiative; and John who is 45 and went through a pretty nasty split with his wife that crushed his sexual self-esteem. Over the course of the short 75 minute film, you see several of surrogate sessions interspersed with interviews of Sullivan’s neighbors as well as her tense family situation. Perhaps the centerpiece of the doc is a riveting dinner conversation between John and his ex-wife trying to communicate with each other after the messy divorce.
The documentary is quite explicit (although not quite in the ‘see the plumbing’ sense) with its sexuality, but the real exposure here is the emotional baggage of all three people. On the commentary track of the disc (sadly, the films only ‘extra feature’) Dick comments that the film may best be described as ‘Emotional Porn.’ due to the raw (and embarrassing) facets of the central characters on display. The film seems to make no attempt to hide the fact that Kipper at least is highly uncomfortable with the filming process on top of the therapy itself. This adds an interesting third layer to the doc. 1) the therapy of the clients, 2) the therapy of the sex surrogate (i.e. therapist), 3) The therapy of the documentary filmmakers. Why this subject? What do we really learn? (or are were merely indulging in voyeurism at its worst?)
A scene where Sullivan and her brother have a frank conversation with their father on the subject of his mistreatment of their mother bring the film into focus on the fact that perhaps this sex surrogate is having several hundred surrogate appointments per year as a result of her own stilted intimacy issues. Thus the focus comes off the profession itself and into a much more personal space. When John starts to get emotionally attached to Maureen, her reaction to this, in particular the delicate balance of easing out of the relationship while not further crushing his self-esteem is a real balancing act to behold. Her gradual melting of Kipper’s icy hesitation is also pretty riveting stuff. Kipper is perhaps the character that is easier for many to relate too as most people are affected by one form of hesitation or another in fear of failure, only the find the hesitation itself is the cause of failure.
The film may be lit and edited on sub-par video stock that really suffers from expanding up to film and then compressing down to DVD, but the subject matter transcends the low-quality source and not much in the way of editing or stylization; the latter of which may actually help the films air of authenticity.
One piece of strange trivia is that the voice of one of the interviewers in the film (who also does double duty on camera) is one Catherine E. Coulson, better known as the ‘Loglady’ on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, a TV show (and filmmaker) that also indulges/examines the nature of voyeurism as reality is refracted into media. Coulson is not credited for this on the IMDb, although that is more likely the case of the large number of errors in the IMDb rather than shying away from this documentary. Private Practices is worth a look: A peek behind the ‘forbidden’ curtain to find that delicate humanity trumps lewd thrills.
