The next Sundance drama «tickets”, directed by Ira Sachs, received an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association, but will be released without a rating by MUBI, the distributor confirmed to Variety. MUBI called the rating «unexpected» and said it was «deeply disappointed by the MPA’s decision.»
“MUBI has officially rejected this NC-17 rating,” the dealer added. «MUBI remains committed to releasing ‘Passages’ nationwide in its original version, as the filmmaker intended, with our full support, without ratings or cuts.»
“Passages” centers on a love triangle in Paris between a film director (Franz Rogowski), her artist husband (Ben Whishaw) and an elementary school teacher (Adèle Exarchopoulos, no stranger to NC-17 controversies as the star of “Blue Is the warmest color”) is found one night. The film includes several sex scenes in which the actors are completely nude, but none of them are lewd or gratuitous. One scene focuses on the husbands having sex and is filmed in one long uninterrupted take that lasts just over two minutes.
«You can’t untangle the movie from what it is», Sachs told the Los Angeles Times in an interview about the film’s NC-17 rating. “It’s a very open film about the place of the sexual experience in our lives. And to change that now would be to create a very different film.»
“We are hungry for movies that are close to our own experience, and to find a movie like this, which is then left out, is, to me, depressing and reactionary,” added Sachs. “It really is a form of culture. censorship which is quite dangerous, particularly in a culture that is already struggling, in such extreme ways, against the possibility of LGBT imagery.»
NC-17’s films have garnered attention in recent months thanks to the release of Netflix’s «Blonde,» a Marilyn Monroe biopic that earned Ana de Armas an Oscar nomination for best actress, and «Infinity Pool from Neon, which director Branden Cronenberg re-edited. so it could be released with an R rating. Sachs will do no such thing with «Passages.»
The MPA once infamously gave the Michelle Williams-Ryan Gosling marital drama “Blue Valentine” an NC-17 rating due to a scene in which Gosling’s character performs oral sex on Williams’ character. The film’s distributor, The Weinstein Company, aggressively fought the MPA over the decision and eventually succeeded in having the rating rescinded. The movie was released with an R rating. Sachs isn’t taking this route either.
“Passages” will be released in unrated theaters on August 4.