Its name provokes two types of reactions.
An amused smile or an embarrassed look, it depends.
Porn star Rocco Siffredi arrives on Netflix with “Supersex”.
This seven-episode series retraces the life of the porn actor with legendary measurements who boasts nearly 500 films and 5,000 sexual partners.
The title alone is enough to attract the libidinous and is already ensuring views on the platform.
But did this journey deserve a biopic?
Not sure.
Rocco Tano, his real name, was born in Ortona, in Abruzzo, a region in southern Italy, in the mid-1960s. A working-class family, a group of boys where testosterone and clichés about women abound.
A magazine hanging around the neighborhood introduces him to a superhero whose power is his penis.
That, Rocco, inspires him, even fascinates him.
The magazine becomes a relic.
Gloomy environment, flat dialogues and conventional images
In his life there is also Tommaso, an idolized half-brother, rejected by the father who claims that he is the son of a prostitute that the family took in.
Rocco (Alessandro Borghi) arrives in Paris as a teenager, to join this brother, a big-hearted thug and his fiancée, the beautiful Lucia (Jasmine Trinca).
First sexual experiences, a revelation for the hunk.
Rocco hangs out in Pigalle, frequents prostitutes.
Discovers a passion for sex, which soon becomes an addiction and arrives on his first shoots.
Siffredi?
This is the name of the character played by Alain Delon in “Borsalino”, Roch Siffredi, that a colleague suggested to him.
It's a bit creepy, this whole environment.
And not exciting.
Do we want to see that?
Especially since in form, the series invents nothing, the dialogues are flat, the situations and plans are fairly conventional.
The sex scenes parade, in spades.
Filmed in a very conventional way.
Old-fashioned porn, breeding ground for the living legend of hard-core where the women are very young and submissive.
Also read: Abuses of the porn industry: fifty years ago, “Deep Throat”, the first success of porn, unleashed passions
We're a little bored in this melodrama.
The scenes of arguments, tears, reunions in Parisian cafes, follow one another and are similar.
Alessandro Borghi and Jasmine Trinca are touching.
But it's hard to let ourselves be moved, as the series goes from sentimentalism to raw sex, in a brutal way.
However, on paper, it could have worked.
Francesca Manieri, the creator of the series, is known for her feminist positions.
In particular, she co-signed the screenplay for “Immensità” by Emanuele Crialese, or “Anna”, an Arte series, by Niccoló Ammaniti.
Not sure either that the choice of highlighting an X star, as legendary as she is, is the right one, when we see the ravages of porn among adolescents.
The documentary “Rocco” by Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai explored the dark side of man, questioning his relationship to sex.
The series does not have this perspective.
Rocco, whose behavior was often borderline and who sexually assaulted Cécile de Ménibus on the Cauet plateau in 2006, was clearly the world before.
Editor's note:
2.5/5
“Supersex”,
a series by Francesca Manieri, with Alessandro Borghi, Jasmine Trinca, Linda Hardy, DAvid Kammenos Seven episodes of 42 to 55 minutes.