Just finished watching the world premiere of the documentary "Cleanflix". It has been a long road seeing this project through to the finish. I really enjoyed it and am proud to be a part of it.
When co-directors Andrew James and Josh Ligairi walked in to my Cleanflix store and said they wanted to do a documentary, I knew they were going to be the ones to get it right. A few other groups had come expressing interest in doing a movie about CleanFlicks. I could tell that Andrew and Josh were serious and were ready to get started. I really liked how they seemed to have differing opinions on the issue of edited movies and I thought that would give a balanced look at the issue.
The documentary did a great job of quickly bringing the audience up to speed on how the sanitizing of movies came to be and the Mormon culture that fostered it. It did not come across as preachy and handled the religious parts in a very respectful way.
The first part of the movie showed examples of edits that were disturbing for me to watch. It shows various scenes that involve violence and nudity. For some reason it didn't dawn on me that a movie about CleanFlicks would have that material in it but now it makes sense. Proponents of edited movies would be offended by this content and would be better off waiting for an edited version of the documentary. (smile)
The movie cleverly moves from the issues that have been so typical surrounding this debate. It's really not about that at all. It lays and excellent foundation for understanding the CleanFlicks story but overall simply tells the story of a few peoples' lives that were involved with the industry.
The revealing story within the story of this documentary is about an edited video store manager's fall from grace. I write this from an insider's perspective. For those of us that live in Utah, the story is commonly known and was well reported in the local news media. For those that know little about CleanFlicks, this will be quite shocking. The most fascinating part of the movie is getting to know the real mindset behind the man involved in the sex scandal.
Many people mistakenly thought that this man was the founder of CleanFlicks. That was not the case. CleanFlicks was started by a good man with good intentions but interestingly it also brought out a few wolves in sheep's clothing. As I said in the question and answer session after the screening, this movie only covers a part of the scandal and drama behind the scenes of the edited movie saga. Maybe I will write a book that tells the full story or maybe there will be a "Cleanflix Part 2".
The movie ends with a local college professor saying that he thinks that depriving the natural man of sexuality is what caused the illicit conduct of the store manager. I don't believe that is the opinion of the filmmakers but it could be understood that way because it is the final view expressed. Personally, I believe that the sexual misconduct was already inside of the person and that if he were exposed to more violence and nudity that something worse could have easily happened. Many death row inmates can trace their beginnings back to exposure to animal cruelty and pornography. Watching movies with excessive violence and nudity will desensitize and demoralize the audience. This, in turn, will break down normal limits, good judgment and allow more acceptance that leads to abuse and the decay of society.
