We know that Danland will end with a wedding – we know this from the start, as Alexandra Berger‘s debut film opens with our titular Dan Leal (or, as we will very soon come to know him, “Porno Dan”) nervously standing before a glitzy chapel, a veiled lady waiting in the wings. But just who will become Mrs. Porno Dan? Such is the question of the film and the quest of Leal, amateur porn performer and producer, sex addict, salesman, co-dependent, and hopeless romantic. Danland sounds quirky and a bit overstuffed, but that would perhaps be a knee-jerk reaction to indie cinephiles skimming its synopsis, because there’s another facet to Danland and the bizarre world it charts that might not be evident from first glance.
Dan Leal is a real person and Danland is a documentary.
Leal’s entire life hinges on his profession as said amateur porn performer and producer. When we first meet Leal, he’s running his company out of his own home – that is, running every single element of his porno business out of his own home. Yes, that includes the actual filming of multitudes of amateur porn titles, many of which he stars in, all of which are without plot, production value, or any kind of real sexiness. Amaetur porn is staggeringly easy, but it’s not pretty. Danland provides a true peek behind the curtain, as director and co-writer Berger doesn’t flinch from anything that she’s putting on screen – sex, nudity, drinking, kink, sex toys that would make the most experienced of porn stars blush, general debauchery, horrendous fashion decisions – it’s all there, and it’s all a part of Danland.
Yet despite his apparent success in his area of expertise, Leal is desperate to go straight and settle down. He tells it plain – he’s “in love with the concept of being in love.” And Leal’s heart belongs to just one woman (though his penis seems to belong to anyone who shows him even the most modest of interest). The object of Leal’s affection is his law student ex-girlfriend, Emily, who is consistently built up within both the framework of the film and Leal’s near-obsession with her. Of course, as Danland is a documentary and is about real people, unleashing vitriol on one of its subjects who appears for less than a quarter of its runtime is sticky business, but Emily really comes across as just awful. Grating, drunk, potty-mouthed, uncouth, she’s like a reject from Jersey Shore. But more than that, she’s just awful for Dan, and their renewed relationship sets the stage for his slip back into the worst parts of the amateur porn business, and with less gusto and pull than he’s ever had before.
As horrible as Emily is, she’s what ultimately kicks the somewhat meandering Danland into high gear – Leal, once king of his modest empire, is left with virtually nothing in the wake of their blow-out break-up, and he’s desperate to recapture whatever it was that made him happy (no matter how strangely sad and empty it looks to the audience) before Emily. While the first half of Danland is relentlessly entertaining simply because of how interesting Leal’s world is and how totally weird it is that he’s carved out an existence in it, the second part of the film becomes a much closer character study of a man whose life has completely crumbled (and who is oddly reticent to admit as such).
The Upside: Immensely watchable, Danland is a great slice of life doc about an regular dude and his not-so-regular profession.
The Downside: The film takes too much time to get to its real thrust, dabbling too long in the juicy and salacious bits before buckling down to the real goods.
On the Side: The scads of average people who do amateur porn “on the side” will make audiences wonder if anyone they know is secretly hitting the mattresses for pay. What, that’s just me?