Assholes

Assholes could be to Generation Z what Shortbus was to millennials, as it also delivers a wildly debauched, destructively self-absorbed and whimsically shallow take on the polished American indie films of the time, and will also be condemned by some for its superficiality and lack of clearly defined categorisation. Like in the case of Shortbus, however, only time will tell if Assholes truly depicted its generation and what defined the inner moods of the members of that generation and how society, or rather its boundaries, was transformed through them. But it is just as possible that Assholes will simply remain a very off-the-wall relationship flick whose dramatics are guided by the amount of poppers inhaled and that isn’t afraid to admit that its twists are literally sucked out of its ass. But if we truly take both films as statements about their respective generations, then what do they tell us about them? What these generations basically have in common is that they all mainly want to get laid and that their dreams, frustrations and values are to a large extent shaped by the audio-visuals of their time, particularly pornography. Millennials thus longed for orgasms, which they could seek out across genders in an expanding sphere of sexual orientations, or rather preferences. The younger generation, defined by excessive reality-show and extreme hyper-physical pornography, is then transformed into hedonists, of which even Mephistopheles winds up on a psychotherapist’s couch. At least that’s how Peter Vack depicts generation Z in his rollicking debut, which he conceived as the film equivalent of herpes – irritating and disfiguring, but at its core, also abounding with the promises and echoes of something wild and unrestrained. (23.05.2022)