4.9Keywords: sex educationhealth education
Plot summary
While LANGUAGE OF LOVE illustrated general sex behaviour, MORE ABOUT THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE shows minority group attitudes towards sex. As in the first film, there is an expert panel of scientist, discussing and explaining the different parts of the film. The famous Danish sexologist couple Inge and Sten Hegeler are throughout the leading characters, while the others experts change in every sector. The headings are as follows: male and female homosexuality, aesthetics and sex, handicapped and sex, drugs and sex, pornography and sex, children and sex, and sex with old people. In the new film affliction and warmth are emphasised, particularly in the chapter showing coition between persons of the same sex. Besides when a blind girl and boy examine with their hands how a naked man and woman respectively are made, a new educational method initiated by the internationally known, Swedish sex pedagogue Maj-Brith Bergstroem-Walan. The child's natural need of masturbation in an unsafe world is commented on, and old people's right to a happy sex life is demonstrated. The pornography part comprises an exposing report from a sex club in Copenhagen, where fascinating "live-Show" is emphasised, and a description of how pornographic films dealing with group sex is being produced. The drugs and sex sequence is a shocking report about all human variations and the importance of tenderness, is concluded in the final chapter, presenting a blond and very attractive young girl and her dark, curly haired fiancée during passionate and richly varied intercourse.—Stefan Nylen
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Follow-up to Swedish sex doc perfects the formula
LANGUAGE OF LOVE (1969) was apparently quite groundbreaking for its day, basically the Scandinavian answer to Matt Cimber's MAN & WIFE and the first film to present explicit sex onscreen in Sweden. However, in contrast to its more prurient American cousin, LANGUAGE OF LOVE truly seems to have been made by folks who believed in what they were doing, resulting in a film that's 98% dialogue, 2% sex, and, in this reviewer's opinion, ungodly boring. The same team returns for this follow-up, though thankfully they seem to have figured out the formula for success in the interim, cutting down on gum-flapping and expanding the earlier film's vignette structure into a more diverse and interesting group of people.
Focus here, after the predecessor's strictly hetero, monogamous marriage manual structure, is sexual anomalies, and give the film credit, it's unafraid to go there quickly. Immediately following the titles, the returning sex researchers dive right into a discussion of homosexuality, and it's barely 10 minutes before the movie is presenting a totally uncensored view of gay lovers in flagrante. In pleasant addition to this sequence, however, is the footage that surrounds it: the couple hangs out in their apartment, cuddles, and acts intimate in a completely casual, normalizing way that's still rare to see today in media not specifically directed toward gay viewers.
Next segment covers a pair of lesbians and runs the risk of stylistic repetition, but handles things compassionately and effectively. Subsequent sections cover transvestism (and a bit about transgenderism),sex among the mentally and physically impaired, etc. The latter is particularly stunning, as the subject of sex among the handicapped is still a topic that makes people uncomfortable; yet, like all the rest of its segments, the film presents it with a remarkable amount of empathy and candor.
Things slow down a bit toward the end, which features a section on pornography and sex shows that feels like filler. Nevertheless, this was exactly the breath of fresh air I needed after so many crummy US exploitation pseudo-docs: a film that dedicates itself to covering non-mainstream subjects and does so with sensitivity, tact and - dare I say it? - even eroticism. I still haven't seen the final entry in the trilogy, LANGUAGE OF LOVE XYZ, but I hope it kept up the momentum, a vast improvement over the well-intentioned but stodgy first entry.