Naked Men Talking: Noel Alejandro
We go behind-the-scenes of his lates film, The Mirror.
The latest release from Noel Alejandro is The Mirror.
In this film, Alejandro is exploring the emotional aftermath of a breakup - navigating desire, memory, and fantasy.
For our podcast, Naked Men Talking, we caught up with Noel for a behind-the-scenes look at the film.
In the conversation, we talk body-paint, authenticity, and vintage inspirations.
This film explores the emotional aftermath of a breakup, navigating desire, memory and fantasy. Have you had a messy breakup recently? Are you drawing on personal experience for the inspiration for this story?
Yes - I think all of my movies talk about recent breakups. It's the most fertile ground to build a story from. Also, of course, it's therapeutic to be able to talk about something that really crushed you. So yes, it's a story that came after a really bad breakup. It's not the worst breakup I ever had, but it was a breakup with a man who was married.
After this breakup, I wrote The Mirror as a metaphorical projection of what is it like during the weeks after the breakup when all of your memories are scattered and you're like trying to recompose everything to try to find out what really happened. You go through every conversation you've have to try to understand what really happened. It takes a while to digest it and to understand what really happened.
You said that the emotional chaos of a breakup is fertile ground for storytelling and for building narratives, but is it difficult to balance that with erotic filmmaking - to remember that this also has to be sexy?
I don't necessarily think that the story needs to be sexy. This is part of my Bedtime Stories project. All the stories have a sex scene because this is what is the core of the project is about. But I don't think the story needs to be sexy because I don't think life is sexy itself. Life can be sexy, but it's also sad, it's boring, it's good, it's bad.
This is how life is - we're happy, we're sad, and then five minutes later we can be having sex with someone.
People are looking for real stories. They're looking for experiences and they're happy to come along with the characters into sex intercourse. It's quite weird. It's quite interesting, but it's very intense because you get to fall in love with the characters. You get to empathise with the characters. You also come along with them in this journey with sex, which transforms the experience into something totally new and interesting and intense.
The sex needs to serve to the story - most of the times in my movies, the sex is a moment of redemption for the character, a release, a redemption, a moment of salvation. It's a positive message about sex.
One of the interesting aspects of The Mirror is that one of the characters is in full body-paint. When it came to filming the sex scenes, was the continuity a challenge in terms of the body-paint?
The sex scene where this character is involved happens in the very last part of the movie, so it's not an obstacle for the storytelling.
The actor does a lot shows in full body-paint like this. I asked him if he'd ever had sex wearing the body-paint - he said he's done it hundreds of times.
The film features Marco Merenda, Bast, and Raúl Gordillo. What is your casting process when you're working on a project like The Mirror?
I like to build up the story based on the actors or performers that I want to work with - it's easier for me to make it believable.
I get to meet a lot of performers that want to make a movie like this. The first step is that I talk to the person - we have an interview or a coffee. When I meet them, I'm already starting to create a story out of this person - the way he talks, he moves, his limitations, or the way he expresses himself.
We're not talking about professional method actors that can actually get into almost any character you ask them, we're talking about people who are not used to this kind of work.
You want people to believe what they're watching.
When we look at the adult entertainment industry today, there's not really anyone doing it like you're doing when it comes to filming man-on-man action and telling stories in an erotic way. You've talked before about how a proportion of your audience is women - it's not just gay men that you're making these films for. How does that shape your creative process?
I don't necessarily think of the audience when I'm making movies. I'm not saying that I don't care about my audience, I'm just saying that when you're trying to tell stories - to open yourself up, to discover what's interesting for you, to figure out what you want to talk about - you don't think of metrics or you don't think of audience. You need to deep dive into yourself to find what really motivates you.
The dreamlike structure of a story like The Mirror reminds me of some of the best vintage porn films. Is vintage porn a reference for you?
Porn was born out of cinema. In the beginning, it was a full narrative - sex was part of the story.
After the creation of VHS and DVDs, porn became industrialised. Why would producers bother crafting a story if they're making the same money just with the sex scenes?
Maybe we're starting to see a step back in the direction of narrative and storytelling. There's always trends.
That's why vintage porn is interesting - it comes with an artistic vision. I've always wanted to tell stories, but I'm not doing anything new.
What are some of the challenges in running a studio like yours?
When you do sex, you have crossed a frontier, you have passed a line. There is stigma.
We need to deal with a different bunch of tools to promote our movies - we cannot be on Facebook or Instagram, we need to really be careful. It's difficult to reach audiences.
What do you hope that people feel when they watch The Mirror?
I hope that they can forget that they're watching an adult movie and just totally connect with what they're watching. We are offering cinema and stories - every single movie is an emotional journey.
This movie is a synthesis of everything that I've been working on for the past few years - I think it's the most well-developed movie I've done to date.
Watch The Mirror on NoelAlejandroFilms.com
Gareth Johnson