Passages filmmaker slams NC-17 rating for queer romance: 'A form of cultural censorship'
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Filmmaker Ira Sachs is speaking out against the Motion Picture Association's decision to give his queer romance Passages an NC-17 rating.
In a conversation with the Los Angeles Times, Sachs slammed the decision as "a form of cultural censorship that is quite dangerous, particularly in a culture which is already battling, in such extreme ways, the possibility of LGBT imagery to exist."
The sexy Sundance breakout follows a messy love triangle between director Tomas (Franz Rogowski), print-maker Martin (Ben Whishaw) and grade-school teacher, Agathe (Adèle Exarchapoulos). As an illicit affair tears through their lives like a wrecking ball, Sachs explores their evolving dynamics through a number of sex scenes.
With an NC-17 rating, no one under 17 — even those accompanied by a parent or guardian — will be admitted into the film.
"We hunger for movies that are in any proximity to our own experience," the filmmaker said. "To find a movie like this, which is then shut out, is, to me, depressing and reactionary."
Courtesy of Sundance Institute Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski in 'Passages'
MUBI, who acquired the film out of Sundance, called the rating "unexpected" and released a statement confirming the film will be released unrated in NY and LA theaters on August 4, with a wider rollout to follow.
"Passages is an honest and groundbreaking portrait of contemporary relationships, both queer and straight," MUBI said in a statement. "Frank and thoughtful portrayals of sex are essential to cinematic storytelling and in service of representation more broadly. An NC-17 rating suggests the film's depiction of sex is explicit or gratuitous, which it is not, and that mainstream audiences will be offended by this portrayal, which we believe is also false."
"It's so 1950s that this still exists," Sachs added, criticizing the MPA rating board overall. "We're talking about a board that is not visible, that doesn't make its rules known, that exists in silence. We're talking about a select group of people who have a certain bent, which seems anti-gay, anti-progress, anti-sex — a lot of things which I'm not."
Sachs is far from the first filmmaker frustrated by an NC-17 rating. Last year, Andrew Dominik's Blonde became a Netflix rarity when it received the rating for graphic sexual content. The news was a surprise to Dominik because he thought "we'd colored inside the lines." Similarly, Infinity Pool director Brandon Cronenberg re-cut his thriller so it could be released with an R-rating.
Sachs has no interest in following a similar path for Passages, and said he never even considered re-cutting the film.
"There's no untangling the film from what it is," the filmmaker explained. "It is a film that is very open about the place of sexual experience in our lives. And to shift that now would be to create a very different movie."
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