Kissing on the Mouth (2005)

  

Kissing on the Mouth 

directed by Joe Swanberg
written by Kevin Pittman, Kris Rey, and Joe Swanberg
Film1

2005


Kissing on the Mouth is an early mumblecore movie, although it has far more in common with 9 Songs than it does with something like Funny Ha Ha.

 

The plot here is minimal. What's distinctive about the film is its frank portrayal of nudity and 'non-simulated sex acts' and the use of audio recordings of everyday young adults talking about relationships to provide a voiceover soundtrack that runs over most of the movie. The mixture of these non-fictional elements with a naturalistic but fictional narrative and improvised rather than scripted acting is kind of fascinating.

 

Within the film, the recordings are some kind of secret art project of Patrick's, so sometimes the audience hears them because a character in the film is listening to them, sometimes we just hear them as a kind of commentary track. The recordings are about dating, sex, breaking up. They don't directly correspond to anything happening on the screen, although they are generally thematically related to the fictional plot.

 

Ellen and Patrick (played by the director, Joe Swanberg) are roommates, who, as far as I can tell, have never had a sexual relationship. Despite this, Ellen finds herself sneaking around, and Patrick seems weirdly controlling of her relationships. The other two characters are Ellen's ex-boyfriend Chris, who she's recently started hooking up with again, and her friend Laura (played by Swanberg's future wife), who acts as an unreliable confidante, and also seduces Patrick while Ellen is away.

  

We watch Ellen and Chris make out, strip, then fuck, several times. That really is the appropriate verb here. We get two different scenes of Ellen grooming her pubic hair, once on the toilet, once in the shower. Patrick (that is, Swanberg) masturbates to completion in the shower. Laura and Patrick make out in the shower, then fuck.

 

Ellen wants to know about the secret project Patrick is working on. He refuses to tell her. She burns a copy of the recordings to a CD to listen to without his permission. Ellen and Laura talk about sex and desire; Laura gossips about Ellen to Patrick to convince him to have sex with her. Patrick keeps asking Ellen if she's seeing Chris again; she keeps lying and saying no. Eventually he searches her room and finds nude photos Chris took of her.

 

The climax of the film, such as it is, is a fight between Ellen and Patrick where they confront each other over the secrets they've been keeping. Patrick is obviously very jealous. I feel like this scene only makes sense if you think he wants to date Ellen, or maybe that he's been lying to himself and imagining they were a couple, and not just roommates, this entire time. By the end of the film, Ellen has re-established her autonomy. Nothing else is resolved.

  

The graphic content is realistic rather than glamorous. It feels more like we're peeping at people than like they're performing for us, although obviously that's a conceit - everything we see is a performance. The film's editing is interesting, often intercutting two scenes to create an emotional contrast. Most of the action happens without dialogue, leaving space for the voiceovers to fill. The recorded interviews are the most interesting aspect of the movie, and combined with the somewhat experimental visuals, make this probably a bit better than 9 Songs, which uses similarly explicit depictions of sex to track the course of a brief relationship.
 
 

Originally watched February 2023.