WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story is probably one of the most tragic films I have ever seen. What makes it even more heart breaking is the fact that it's real.
Whatever your views on Annabel's (Real name: Grace Quek) vocation, you cannot help but feel pity for a mixed-up girl used and abused by the porn system. An ex-drug user and rape victim, Annabel is seen cutting herself with a knife because "I need to let the pain inside out."
Yet cleverly the film keeps such revelations, and her parents' discovery of her job, until the end. The beginning of the documentary is Chong putting on a brave face, though indications are given that all is not what it appears to be. Blessed with a laugh that is less an expression of mirth, more the blossoming stages of a complete nervous breakdown, Annabel is clearly an emotionally distraught woman.
Of course, Chong is most famous for being the first to indulge in a record-breaking gang bang. Described by Chong, not altogether convincingly, as a "p***-take on the whole notion of masculinity", it comes across as a very unhappy individual desperate to please. Later reports reveal that Chong had to stop at the 251 mark due to an internal scratch (though she admitted to being in pain after the 230th), and that not all the men taking part had HIV tests. Seeing Chong attending a clinic with the words "If I get AIDS I'm not gonna regret it", is one of the saddest sights I've ever seen. Worst still, despite the end result The World's Biggest Gang Bang becoming the best-selling porn video of all time, a legal loophole meant she didn't see a penny of the profit.
Her justification for entering the industry in the first place was that at college "It got really boring because I finished f***ing everybody." Chong is shown to be an articulate and intelligent woman, yet one who sadly lets nerves and the desire to please whittle down her intellect in public. At one point her manager, pre-Gang Bang, orders her: "Why don't you stand up sweetheart, and take your clothes off, and let the people see what they wanna f***?" Chong dutifully obliges, wearing her permanent, stuck-on (hollow) smile. Surprisingly, the documentary actually features very little in the way of sex, though Chong does display an alarming tendency to walk around in the nude.
Very few voices are heard in dissent. Her old art teacher politely suggests that she "tries to be extrovert, but isn't really", though the only really negative reactions come from within the porn industry. "I make top of the line movies" sniffs Ona Zee at one point. Another, Michael J.Coxx, disparages "It just gives porno a bad name." That's Michael J.Coxx, the star of Oral Majority. Perhaps most interesting is Chong's meeting with Jasmin St. Claire, the Californian who would go on to break her record with 300 men. The two dutifully expose their breasts to the camera, but there's a tangibly bitchy atmosphere throughout. Claire's success is then contrasted with Chong's squalor.
Very few laughs can be gained from the piece, though seeing a ginger-haired attendee looking nervously down at his crotch upon hearing the warm-up advice "the problem of getting an erection" is faintly amusing. Look out too for Dick James, the Annabel Chong fan club president, who seems to say everything in inverted commas, including the phrase "fan club". Her return to the porn industry after a year of abstinence says it all: as she hugs an old "friend" from the industry, he gives a smug smile to a co-worker behind her back.
Only the punning end title theme of "Amazing Grace" disappoints, making Sex an oddly compelling documentary.
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story is probably one of the most tragic films I have ever seen. What makes it even more heart breaking is the fact that it's real.
Whatever your views on Annabel's (Real name: Grace Quek) vocation, you cannot help but feel pity for a mixed-up girl used and abused by the porn system. An ex-drug user and rape victim, Annabel is seen cutting herself with a knife because "I need to let the pain inside out."
Yet cleverly the film keeps such revelations, and her parents' discovery of her job, until the end. The beginning of the documentary is Chong putting on a brave face, though indications are given that all is not what it appears to be. Blessed with a laugh that is less an expression of mirth, more the blossoming stages of a complete nervous breakdown, Annabel is clearly an emotionally distraught woman.
Of course, Chong is most famous for being the first to indulge in a record-breaking gang bang. Described by Chong, not altogether convincingly, as a "p***-take on the whole notion of masculinity", it comes across as a very unhappy individual desperate to please. Later reports reveal that Chong had to stop at the 251 mark due to an internal scratch (though she admitted to being in pain after the 230th), and that not all the men taking part had HIV tests. Seeing Chong attending a clinic with the words "If I get AIDS I'm not gonna regret it", is one of the saddest sights I've ever seen. Worst still, despite the end result The World's Biggest Gang Bang becoming the best-selling porn video of all time, a legal loophole meant she didn't see a penny of the profit.
Her justification for entering the industry in the first place was that at college "It got really boring because I finished f***ing everybody." Chong is shown to be an articulate and intelligent woman, yet one who sadly lets nerves and the desire to please whittle down her intellect in public. At one point her manager, pre-Gang Bang, orders her: "Why don't you stand up sweetheart, and take your clothes off, and let the people see what they wanna f***?" Chong dutifully obliges, wearing her permanent, stuck-on (hollow) smile. Surprisingly, the documentary actually features very little in the way of sex, though Chong does display an alarming tendency to walk around in the nude.
Very few voices are heard in dissent. Her old art teacher politely suggests that she "tries to be extrovert, but isn't really", though the only really negative reactions come from within the porn industry. "I make top of the line movies" sniffs Ona Zee at one point. Another, Michael J.Coxx, disparages "It just gives porno a bad name." That's Michael J.Coxx, the star of Oral Majority. Perhaps most interesting is Chong's meeting with Jasmin St. Claire, the Californian who would go on to break her record with 300 men. The two dutifully expose their breasts to the camera, but there's a tangibly bitchy atmosphere throughout. Claire's success is then contrasted with Chong's squalor.
Very few laughs can be gained from the piece, though seeing a ginger-haired attendee looking nervously down at his crotch upon hearing the warm-up advice "the problem of getting an erection" is faintly amusing. Look out too for Dick James, the Annabel Chong fan club president, who seems to say everything in inverted commas, including the phrase "fan club". Her return to the porn industry after a year of abstinence says it all: as she hugs an old "friend" from the industry, he gives a smug smile to a co-worker behind her back.
Only the punning end title theme of "Amazing Grace" disappoints, making Sex an oddly compelling documentary.