Title: HardEdge Studio: Studio A Entertainment Director: Andrew Blake Cast: Kelle Marie, Adriana Sage, Nika, Justine, Nicola, Julian, Julia Taylor, Faith Adams Genres:: Drama, European, Feet, Fetish, Food, Spanking Condoms: No Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

It's rather hard to describe Andrew Blake's HardEdge without getting all artsy, just like the film itself, but let's try anyway:

HardEdge is one of those hardcore films that are usually screened by a group of friends who enjoy and appreciate irony, and everybody points and hoots at the same parts, while inwardly wondering who else just got turned on by what they just saw, and?

Oh, hell, let's go flowery. HardEdge is a lavishly-filmed, lushly artistic meditation on erotic tension and imagery. There. For those of you who don't care too much for three-dollar words, let's break it down like this:

"Lavishly-filmed." HardEdge was shot on film, giving it that desperately sought after "legitimate cinema" look and feel. It's beautiful to look at; the settings seem to be in and around a Parisian chateau, and the women involved are Andrew Blake's favorites -- sophisticated and European without being Eurotrash. One girl with a short black bob haircut and glasses, in particular, was quite hot.

"Lushly artistic meditation." That means there's not a single standard fuck scene in the entire piece. Instead we get an uninterrupted series of erotic vignettes ranging from the absurd to the fetishistic, but more on them in a moment. Artistic here also means the entire thing is filmed in that artsy semi-slow motion that certain film school grads enjoy using, and set to a soundtrack that, at times, gets downright minimalistic. The overall effect is that of a hardcore version of Koyaanisqatsi, only without the powerfully dark statements on technology being the downfall of civilization and all that. So what does that leave us with?

"Erotic tension and imagery." Ah, yes. Here we go. There doesn't seem to be a cohesive story in HardEdge, nor should there be, for any attempt would just be reaching for a narrative that doesn't exist. One scene just follows another, often without any change in the music. It doesn't matter, for it's the imagery that counts here. Two women spray champagne all over their naked forms; the second woman's scene is played back in reverse. Several times. From multiple angles. Honestly, it's hypnotizing to watch the spray reverse itself and shoot back into the bottle.

Another scene has a man wearing a spiked heel on his cock (slips it on rather easily) and his partner giving the heel and foot-cock a little worship. A clever bit of double fetishism, really, and better than the overuse of bananas carved into anatomically-correct dildo shapes. One scene with bananas was okay, but three was definitely more than enough. And really, just because a banana is a time-honored phallic symbol, does it mean you have to take the metaphor to its logical extreme?

With no spoken dialogue or sound effects whatsoever, HardEdge is a curious and provocative piece of erotica that makes you stop and scratch your head, and that's unique enough to make it stand out from other pornographic offerings. Well worth a look, and even moreso if you've got a few friends who'd dig a chance to point and hoot.