COMING SOON (CZECH REPUBLIC/2006/SIR TIJN PO)

Mixing the naked audacity of underground cinema with the familiar format of the TV documentary, Coming Soon is an unfettered portrait of zoophiles, those whose sexual gratification comes from interaction with animals. Interviewing members of the first bestiality-rights group E.F.A. (Equality For All), the film allows its subjects to speak for themselves, explain their life philosophies and passively put their case forward. Narration is restricted so as not to condescend to the audience.

With such a controversial topic, it’s very difficult to want to hear the ‘other side’ of the story. Some of the arguments used in the film don’t make any effort to appeal to sound logic, and there are some disturbing accounts which do little else except shock. But whether one agrees with the film or dismisses it as contentious hippy bullshit, it is undeniably well made. Director Sir Tijn Po, an outré character who played assistant director on Jan Švankmajer’s film Little Otik, blends his personal advocacy with a great sense of humour to make the piece appeal to most people. Transcending genres and realities, Coming Soon is an exceptional, challenging experience which, for all its meta-referential bombast, never fails to hold interest (the same can’t be said for other films on the same subject). If for no other reason, watch it for the natural comedy of a man contemplating sex with a dinosaur, a selection of inflatable barnyard sex toys, and a jaded shaman sick of other people’s presumptions that zoophiles “fuck spiders in the corner”.