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Confessions
Rating: 2 Stars
Produced by Luis Hoyos. Directed by Jean-Marc Prouveur. Videography by Steve Farrer and Jean-Marc Prouveur. Music by Michael Watson and Peter W.G. Griffiths. Starring Bastian Cade, Alex Jackson, Antonio Lanini, Chip, Antony Romero, Igor, Dan Castillo, Tim Vinzent, Tony Della, Scott Mann, Cedric Martinez, Ed Miller, Fernando Cinelli, Cicero Romano, Louis French, Simon Brit, Gavin Keen, and Billy,
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French-born, British-based Jean-Marc Prouveur is an internationally acclaimed still photographer whose work has been exhibited in London, New York, and major European cities. His reputation as a first-rate photographer of male nudes is deserved. In the UK, he may be best known for his iconic male image on a 1993 safe-sex postcard captioned "This Will Arouse You"-- a photo of a naked man slumped back with legs spread wide, peering down at his crotch. The photo caused controversy because it did arouse people. It was, in fact, more erotic than this misbegotten venture into gay adult video.

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I> Legionnaires, Prouveur's previous attempt at an all-male porn feature, had problems, but it was visually splendid and contained a few strong sexual passages. Confessions goes on for nearly two hours, during which there's barely one fully developed sex scene. The setting is a Catholic boys' school called St. Anselm's, an institution run by monks who wear red buttoned-down shirts. Two narrators hold forth confusingly and sometimes inaudibly. The music sounds like Enigma on crack. In some sections, especially two indecipherable dormitory scenes, muddy theatrical lighting turns everything and everyone corpse green, citrus orange, or both. The 18-man cast includes some appealing models, especially Antonio Lanini and Cedric Martinez, who have sex in the school library, but it's an oddly unintegrated combo of Mediterranean types and young Brits. (The latter look like escapees from a raided rave.) You wonder if this is an effort to rescue an aborted project that need not have seen the light of day.