Making Love

This film keeps your heart and mind beating all at once...

Such a cool movie! Provocative in more ways than sensual, that's for sure. Bravo!

Best of luck to the filmmakers of this wonderful short story!

It was late one lonely night and I was browsing the net for a low budget short film, with enough of a dopamine hit to efficiently send me to sleep. Somehow I came across Making Love and it seemed appropriate; in a particular kind of way. But what unfolded in the following 30 minutes was not what I expected, nor what (I thought) I wanted. I was seeking a simple script that would comfort me in the form of a happy ending. What I received instead, however, was a dark-bordering-sick example of what happens when we lose ourselves in the world of the fantasy. There is a reason many people in this world choose to live in the light, chasing simple pleasures with acceptable outcomes. This tale is not that. This tale will disrupt the innocent viewer and cause them to wonder, 'Who am I and what kind of sick fantasies am I chasing?' If you are happy to have the innocence of your desires violently stripped from you, do proceed. I know I was. Viewer discretion is advised.

Making Love is exactly you'd expect out of a movie made by Peter Rollins, this isn't a Hollywood style display of love, but a meaningful short film on desire and all that entails. With endless themes to dwell on, I found myself rewatching the film. I would also highly recommend on Patreon listening to "A Guide to Making Love" to have a better understanding of the ideas that bring the story to life.

As a great fan of Peter Rollins, I had watched the companion guide and listed to many lectures on this film, so I already knew the ending & every move that was being made. Still the film held up an amazing amount of tension brilliantly! The sensually sweeping cinematography between birds & bodies righteously reflects Rollins' work of human (un)raveling. Rollins shows the undulating between worlds of what we have and don't have, what we want but don't want, and who we are or who we want to be. While the pacing was good, I felt another 3 minutes were needed to allow more space before responding to certain questions. The normal expected pat answers would have been answered as quickly, but the substance of the answers these characters give needed more time to set. A 9/10 only because I wanted a full feature. Making Love beautifully unpacks the anti-climax of Romance. This work is very important to our social development. Once this film becomes that standard norm, perhaps then humanity has a chance.

Built around the psychoanalytic ideas of Jacques Lacan, Making Love explores the relationship between desire and obstacle. There's plenty of challenging and insightful ideas, as well as some great quotes, as you'd expect from any Peter Rollins piece of work. The film is very well shot, and is a visual feast, props to Ryan Kernaghan for the powerful cinematography (which sits up there with other top tier noir films). Highly recommend for any fans of the noir genre or Peter's other work.