The Erectionman Michael Schaap, Netherlands, 2009, 52 minutes
Tuesday, May 11 | 6:30pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
What is desire, and how do you know if your erection is really your own? These are only some of the questions that director Michael Schaap sets out to answer in his film The Erectionman.
At the tender age of 40, Schaap gets a prescription for a little blue pill called Viagra. But even as his body goes into a state of positive priapism, his brain is less than convinced. Does having to use a pill to make love to your wife call into question the very nature of sexual love?
Incredibly frank discussions of male sexuality and insecurity are rare indeed, and here is where Schaap has the courage to speak up. Admitting matter-of-factly to his own obsession with pornography, which manifests in extended bouts of masturbation both at work and at home, Schaap does not spare himself, nor his most intimate bits, from extended scrutiny. But it is penetrating Pfizer, the giant corporation who makes and markets Viagra to the world, that proves the most difficult part of Schaap’s odyssey.
In amongst its more outré sections, The Erectionman poses some rather serious questions. Does the overt commercialism of sex, from porn to pharmaceuticals, invade our deepest sense of ourselves and create a dependence on exterior stimulation? The diminishment of the human male has had some entirely unforeseen effects, including the rise of sports and other male means of combating feelings of irrelevancy and demoralization.
Despite its bluntness, or maybe because of it, The Erectionman is a deeply charming film, with a cautionary message about the danger of combining love and drugs.
Director’s biography
Michael Schaap (1968) studied Political Science at the University of Amsterdam and camera and film directing at the Dutch Film & Television Academy (NFTA). Since graduating in 1996 he worked mainly as a television director and producer for Dutch public broadcasters VPRO and VARA. The Erectionman is his first feature length documentary film.
Preceded by: From Burger It Came Dominic Bisignano, USA, 2009, 7 minutes
Can you get AIDS from eating an abandoned hamburger? An homage to 80s’ sexual paranoia, and adolescent anxiety, Dominic Bisignano’s animated short film captures the confusion and deep weirdness of growing up. Whether you’re captured by the Moonies or having a homosexual experience with a toy found in the bottom of a cereal box, disease and danger lurk everywhere!
