99 Cent Video FLASHBACK: Sex, The Annabel Chong Story

Director: Gough Lewis

Starring: Annabel Chong/Grace Quek, John Bowen, Ed Powers

"I wanted to, as a nice middle class kid, just do something that nice, middle class kids don't do." -Grace Quek

On January 19, 1995, waif-like 22-year-old Annabel Chong made porno history by fornicating with 251 consecutive men over ten hours. Chong's sexual feat - the act that she will forever be linked with - serves as the backdrop for Gough Lewis' first-ever film: Sex: The Annabel Chong Story. However, Gough's documentary is not so much about Chong, star of such infamous titles as "I Can't Believe I Did the Whole Team!" and "All I Want for Christmas is a Gang-Bang," as it is about Grace Quek, the University of Southern California gender studies student behind the Annabel Chong facade.

As a one-dimensional celluloid character, Annabel Chong is a rather simple personality to dissect. The real, three-dimensional Grace Quek is much more difficult to understand. Add to this mix Gough's inexperience behind the camera and his undisclosed, one-time sexual relationship with his leading lady, and the result is an intriguing, yet loosely cohesive film that provokes far more questions than it answers.

Sex documents three years in the life of Grace Quek/Annabel Chong. We are shown glimpses of her convent school-girl past, introduced to several of Quek's teachers and classmates, flown to Singapore to meet her parents (who are initially unaware of their daughter's chosen profession), and exposed to the seedier side of the Los Angeles adult film industry. We witness Chong's rise to porn stardom, self-imposed exile, and later re-emergence in the industry where she made her mark. And yet, we learn little about what motivates Quek, an allegedly unrepentant and self-styled feminist, to engage in all-too-frequent contradictory and self-destructive behavior.

Quek claims she entered adult films to challenge the stereotype that actresses are either "bimbos or victims." (As one USC classmate puts it: "Grace got pissed off in a feminist theory class and ran out and did a porno just to prove a point.") Yet Quek's films, which primarily boast the school-girl attired Chong engaging in anal sex, do little to promote female empowerment. The shortcomings of Quek's stated intentions become even more profound when Gough interviews porn producer John Bowen, who is shocked to learn that his former starlet is college educated and more than just "a babbling idiot." Gough later reveals that Bowen, who cast Quek in her first feature film and freely admits that he intended to mold her into one of porn's sleaziest characters, refused to pay her the $10,000 promised for "The World's Biggest Gang Bang," and that Quek - the alleged feminist entrepreneur - failed to collect.

As for sleeping with 251 consecutive men, Quek gives us the clichéd response that it was a conscious attack on patriarchy: "a piss-take on the whole notion of masculinity. ... I get to be the stud." (In follow-up interviews she even less convincingly explains that her non-stop orgy was merely "a joke.") Even more alarming is the fact that not all of the participants were previously tested for STDs, a fact that producers only revealed to Chong after the shoot.

If Quek at times appears to have been just as exploited as those she criticizes (an accusation she vehemently denies), much of this depiction is no doubt the result of Gough's own agenda. As a jilted ex-lover, the director is clearly biased against his subject and her industry. Worse, as a documentary film-maker, Lewis is disingenuous. Several scenes appear arbitrarily placed without proper context. (Most blatantly, the scene where a clearly intoxicated Quek engages in self-mutilation, an episode she now maintains occurred only once upon her break-up with Lewis, and which he also participated.) Others are clearly staged. (The telephone contract "negotiation" with porn director lowlife Rob Black, for instance.) Moreover, Quek is never allowed to properly explain her decision to return to adult films, elaborate on her complex relationship with her parents, or rebut rumors of her own excessive drug use. Consequently, Lewis' film is as culpable of objectification as is the industry he implicitly indicts.

Nevertheless, despite Lewis' motives and sleight-of-hand, it is clear that the chain-smoking Quek is far from the confident, well-adjusted female she tries to present. As one former art teacher proclaims, "Grace isn't an extrovert, but she wants to be one." And there lies the rub. Until Quek discovers who she is - whether it be Annabel Chong, the brash-talking nymphet or Grace Quek, the demure USC master's candidate -- even the best documentary will leave audiences striving for answers.

Still wondering what makes Grace Quek tick? Read the following interviews at: http://www.horschamp.qc.ca/new_offscreen... http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/99-3/iss...

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