Fashionistas Safado - The Challenge

There are many things you can say about John Stagliano, and many more you can say about his movies. Most of them are complimentary, some might not be. I've never met him, but I've seen a LOT of his films, and they are never ever ever short. The Stag is famous for tacking on plenty of extra footage, handing out 140-minute features when the industry standard was maybe ninety minutes. Fashionistas: Safado is no exception to his policy; on two discs, it clocks in at just over four hours of total running time -- and this is the first half of the movie. It's like one of those epic three-part Private movies that take a year or more to come out, only this has some soul. Well, some heart, anyway.

Safado seems to be sort of the Empire Strikes Back of the Fashionistas saga as it stands so far. Even with its mammoth running time, a gambit Buttman used to great effect in the original -- nearly five hours -- Fashionistas, Safado is nothing more than a setup for the next chapter in the opus, Fashionistas Safado: Berlin. What little story there is in this prelude is brief and almost perfunctory, serving to introduce sex scenes of Biblical proportion, episodes that are worthy of the Old Testament in both length and in the Sodom-and-Gomorrah-esque quantity of debauchery contained therein. In fact, the amount of sodomy and, um, gomorrahmy is so great that after the initial scene, the entire first disc consists of two sex scenes, with brief (albeit skillful) bits of plot development woven in during the sinning. The story begins with Jesse ([Belladonna]) and Antonio ([Rocco Siffredi]) at a fashion show; some clues indicate they have been working together for a while; others lead us to believe it hasn't been that long since the end of Fashionistas.

The event that may or may not be Jesse's coming-out party is a glittering and strobe-lit extravaganza that is, I suspect, very reminiscent of the Fashionistas Vegas show, with aerialists, outlandish fetish outfits and pounding music. During the show, models (partly) clad in skintight latex prowl both the runway and Rocco's pants, and at the subsequent press conference, while Jesse and Antonio answer questions about their joint venture, a guerilla-style video comes on the big screen, surprising them both. It shows another company's fashions and vision, and the two designers try to shut it off, but have no success, and the video plays in its entirety, after which the assembled journalists (including [Melissa Lauren], who is suspiciously not surprised by either the appearance or the content of the guerilla-style video) start asking questions about what Safado might mean.

It is at the after party that the rest of the plot starts to trickle in, during a giant orgy featuring most of the models from Jesse and Antonio's show. The cast of characters here is huge, but the performances to watch out for are by [Gianna Michels], a statuesque (and by statuesque I am suggesting a statue like the Colossus of Rhodes) brunette whose ass and tits are positively Jessica Rabbitish, by [Adrianna Nicole], a smoldering blonde with another set of lesser but still impressive curves, and by the astounding [Sasha Grey]. The orgy scene is Sasha's first scene ever; although, due to the long production time involved in making Fashionistas: Safado, you will have seen her in a few other movies already, this is her first time on screen, and this and the later continuation of the orgy on the second disc constitute quite a debut. In the middle of the orgy, Belladonna arrives to find Rocco involved with a couple of the models, and she's not happy about it; there's some other plot involving Manuel ([Manuel Ferrara]), one of the other designers, as well as Lauren (Melissa Lauren), a journalist who watches, asks Antonio questions, and follows him, camera at the ready, into a private room to record the goings-on when two of the models ([Jenna Haze] and Gianna) decide it's time they got in on the orgy action. The ensuing scene is important for a couple of reasons -- first, it has Gianna in it, and second, it has Melissa Lauren taking pictures (up to a point -- she leaves before the action gets too heavy). Pay attention -- you need to know this for the second disc.

It is in the second disc that Safado really hits its stride, fetish-wise. Antonio wakes up after his big scene with Jenna Haze and Gianna to find that the mysterious journalist Lauren has already posted pictures of his romp on the Safado website. The first twenty minutes of disc 2 consists of Antonio exploring the site, a maze of rooms with names like Pipes, Devil's Due, Tit Towers, Boiler Room, Hanging Out, and a few more, each of which features scenes of varying intensity and degrees of fetish; the costumes are more specialized, with latex definitely in the forefront: full body sheaths -- almost body bags -- hoods and boots and plenty of other stuff. The activities are more intense as well, with the focus more on fetish and less on sex, although there is plenty of both. Piercings and tattoos are more evident, as is a sort of androgynous ethic, with men in gothy corsets and heels as well as latex outfits that muddle gender. The action ranges from just plain modeling to spanking and slapping, through a scene that suggests that an androgynous man is about to get fucked by an androgynous woman sporting a strapon, to some implied breath control, through a spanking foursome in a bathroom to another, more explicit quartet in a hallway that features some impressive deep-throating from a blonde in handcuffs.

All of the website surfing leads to Antonio's discovery of Violet ([Katsumi]), the Safado designer, who appears briefly and mysteriously on the site. Before we find too much out about Violet, though, there's a dark recapitulation of the first disc's orgy scene. This time it's Antonio who wanders in to find Jesse in the middle of a pile of steaming, gleaming bodies, and Jesse who has no interest in stopping to talk. For a wonder, although Belladonna is a big part of the action, she's just a part of it, and not the focus, not even the most dynamic performer in the room. This orgy scene features most of the same players, but the camera work is shakier, the room is less well-lit, and the sex is a lot more aggressive, and it is in this version of the orgy that Sasha Grey really impresses with her total immersion. As a friend of mine says, she's all in. There's squirting from Flower Tucci and lots of screaming and slapping and choking from the rest of the cast.

As Rocco, Gianna and Jenna left the previous orgy to have fun on their own, this time Belladonna, Manuel Ferrara and Melissa Lauren head out to have a private party after this one. This time, Lauren captures Jesse's attention pretty thoroughly and then leaves as mysteriously and abruptly as she did in the scene with Rocco and Gianna.

After a little bit of plot with Antonio and Jesse, in which he reveals that he has discovered that Safado is based in Berlin (and in which it becomes increasingly apparent that Jesse and Antonio's partnership -- and whatever relationship they may have -- is strained to the breaking point), we see, through Antonio's web-surfing eyes, a scene called Violet and Safado; since we know that Katsumi is Violet, it stands to reason that the shaven and manic [Nacho Vidal] must be the enigmatic Safado. Looking feverish and messianic, Safado puts Violet through her cocksucking paces, then makes her go back to work, which consists of more sex, this time with Safado, [Sintia Stone] and [Jazz Duro]. The scene features a head to toe latex outfit including inflatable breast balloons and a space helmet with breath hoses.

The last scene is a final encounter, almost a grudge-fuck, between Antonio and Jesse after he decides to go to Berlin to see what's up with this Safado thing. It doesn't last long, though; Jesse's conflicted emotions over their relationship keep her from getting into it, and although the sex is intense and furious, she walks away, weeping, and tells Antonio to go to Berlin; the final image is of Antonio in a Berlin taxi on his way to unravel the Safado mystery.

This installment doesn't quite live up to the standard set by the original Fashionistas, although elements of it are excellent, but that may just be due to its open end. The photography seems a little shakier, but the costumes are much more elaborate and will be much more satisfying to the crowd that has been waiting for more sophisticated costumes. The music is dynamic and atmospheric, even if much of it sounds like either "Angel" by Massive Attack or "A Time to Fear (Who's Afraid)" by Art of Noise. It's hard to judge Fashionistas: Safado as a movie because it's not complete; it is not much shorter than its predecessor, but it is much less of a cohesive movie. Still, it gets its message across skillfully, even with the minimal plot content. The story can pretty much be summed up thus: Antonio and Jesse's now-successful business faces a challenge from another, younger, hungrier, edgier challenger; at the same time, their relationship is challenged as well. That's it, that's the TV Guide description of Safado. If Fashionistas was the Cyrano de Bergerac of porn, then Safado is, maybe, Showgirls, spotlighting the inevitably fleeting and tenuous nature of power, influence and notoriety in the world of fashion, a world that is a byword for fickleness and short attention spans. Showgirls may be an unfair comparison -- it'll be hard to tell until Fashionistas Safado: Berlin comes out in January.

Cast by Scene:
Private Room: [Rocco Siffredi], [Jenna Haze], [Gianna Michaels]
Pipes: [Judith Fox]
Boiler Room: Oona, Dunya, Constantine
Doggie In the Window: [Annette Schwartz]
Hanging Out: Peg, [Sintia Stone]
Stairway to Heaven: [Vanessa Hill]
Devil's Due: Peg, Constantine
Spider: Dunya, Oona, [Steve Holmes], [Jazz Duro]
Tit Towers: [Annette Schwartz], [Vanessa Hill], [Steve Holmes], [Jazz Duro]
The Orgy: [Adrianna Nicole], [Nicole Sheridan], [Sandra Romain], [Flower Tucci], [Marie Luv], [Jewell Marceau], [Caroline Pierce], [Lia Baren], [Sasha Grey], [Mr. Pete], [Erik Everhard], Christian, [Jean Val Jean], [Chris Charming], [Mark Davis], [Belladonna], [Melissa Lauren], [Jenna Haze], [Rocco Siffredi], [Gianna Michaels]
Girls on the Stage: [Melissa Lauren], [Belladonna], [Manuel Ferrara]
Violet and Safado: [Katsumi], [Nacho Vidal]
Violet Designing: [Katsumi], [Sintia Stone], [Jazz Duro]
Jesse & Antonio: [Belladonna], [Rocco Siffredi]   Collapse.

Safado seems to be sort of the Empire Strikes Back of the Fashionistas saga as it stands so far. Even with its mammoth running time, a gambit Buttman used to great effect in the original -- nearly five hours -- Fashionistas, Safado is nothing more than a setup for the next chapter in the opus, Fashionistas Safado: Berlin. What little story there is in this prelude is brief and almost perfunctory, serving to introduce sex scenes of Biblical proportion, episodes that are worthy of the Old Testament in both length and in the Sodom-and-Gomorrah-esque quantity of debauchery contained therein.... Read the Full Review!