‘2069 – A Sex Odyssey’: A hilariously deranged porno inspired by Stanley Kubrick
Few films in cinema history have been as influential as Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 magnum opus 2001: A Space Odyssey. Widely regarded as the greatest cinematic achievement of the sci-fi genre, 2001 is the blinding apotheosis of experimental filmmaking.
Kubrick worked across a range of genres throughout his career, from the film noir of The Killing to the psychological horror of The Shining. While he always found ways to stand out, it was his approach to science fiction that truly changed the game. 2001: A Space Odyssey has gone on to inspire generations of filmmakers, including the likes of Christopher Nolan and Alfonso Cuarón.
A formidable attempt to document the trajectory of human evolution, 2001 is a challenging visual experience that invites audiences to interpret the apocalyptic undoing of human civilisation. During a conversation with Joseph Gelmis, Kubrick spoke about the non-narrative nature of the film, which helps curate a subjective experience.
Kubrick said: “I think that 2001, like music, succeeds in short-circuiting the rigid surface cultural blocks that shackle our consciousness to narrowly limited areas of experience and is able to cut directly through to areas of emotional comprehension. In two hours and forty minutes of film, there are only forty minutes of dialogue.”
While discussing the audience’s thought process, the acclaimed filmmaker added, “I think in a film like 2001, where each viewer brings his own emotions and perceptions to bear on the subject matter, a certain degree of ambiguity is valuable because it allows the audience to ‘fill in’ the visual experience themselves.”
When sci-fi met softcore: 2069 enters orbit
Over the years, 2001: A Space Odyssey has been interpreted in countless ways. Some critics see it as an optimistic vision of human evolution, while others (myself included) view it as a bleak warning about progress turning inward and collapsing. But no one saw it quite like filmmaker Georg Tressler, who in 1974 released the comedy porno 2069: A Sex Odyssey. A clear product of the trashy porno subgenre, 2069 nods to Kubrick in title alone. After the opening credits, it’s nothing but pure filth.
While Kubrick meticulously constructed a slow, meditative journey through the existential vacuum of space, Tressler launches his viewers straight into the horny chaos of planetary extinction. 2001 was about the evolution of human consciousness, artificial intelligence, and our place in the cosmos. 2069, by contrast, is about five women from Venus who need sperm. One film asked, “What comes after man?” The other asked, “Where are all the men, and are they finished yet?”
What’s so inexplicably fascinating is that 2069: A Sex Odyssey makes a genuine – if undeniably deranged – attempt to borrow Kubrick’s visual language. There are wide-angle spaceship interiors, electronic scores, and slow pans through sci-fi corridors. But where Kubrick used silence and symmetry to provoke thought, Tressler uses them to set up softcore gags involving cosmonaut handjobs
Despite everything – or perhaps because of everything – 2069 becomes a cultural artefact in its own right. Not as a parody in the traditional sense, but as a fever-dream response to Kubrick’s cosmic austerity. It’s what happens when high art enters the gravitational pull of grindhouse cinema and comes out the other end wearing silver hotpants.
If you go into 2069 expecting any of Kubrick’s intellectual curiosities about humanity’s relationship with the universe, perhaps give yourself a knock on the head. This film is about five women from Venus who travel to Earth to save their civilisation from disaster, having run out of semen, which they need to escape extinction.
It’s a hilarious German porno which does cursorily broach the subject of interplanetary colonisation, and that’s being kind to Tressler. 2069 has everything that 2001 does not: absurd humour, accidental sex appeal and a milking machine called ‘The Suckomatic’, which is designed to collect semen from hesitant male specimens. Yes, that’s right. Kubrick might have made some of the greatest films of all time, but he certainly didn’t come up with ‘The Suckomatic’.
Tressler 1 – Kubrick 0.
