Ira Sachs’ ‘Passages’ Stamped With NC-17 Rating

In today’s culture, you’d expect a film to have absolutely shocking content to get an NC-17 rating. I would have never bet that Ira Sachs’ fantastic “Passages” would be one of those films.

“Passages” has garnered a dreaded NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association, and Sachs is none too happy about it.

The writer-director is calling the rating his film garnered a form of “cultural censorship” via the Los Angeles Times. The film’s distributor, MUBI, has also decided to release the film unrated this summer.

Fine, the film has an inordinate amount of sex scenes — gay, bi, straight —but are we such prudes? One can easily stream far more graphic content on Netflix, and that’s a service that’s freely available for people of all ages.

“It’s so 1950s that this still exists,” Sachs said of the rating. He continued, “We’re talking about a [ratings] board that is not visible, that doesn’t make its rules known, that exists in silence. We’re talking about a select group of people who have a certain bent, which seems anti-gay, anti-progress, anti-sex — a lot of things which I’m not.”

It’s really about a form of cultural censorship that is quite dangerous, particularly in a culture which is already battling, in such extreme ways, the possibility of LGBT imagery to exist.

A spokesperson for the MPA tells IndieWire that the NC-17 rating was not due to the characters’ sexual orientation. I believe them. This probably has nothing to do with the film’s gay content. Rather, it has something to do with them being total prudes about sex.

This NC-17 rating might now limit the film’s ability to play in some theaters around the country. MUBI and Sachs are refusing to alter the Final Cut of the film, just to appease the MPA, and they shouldn’t.

“Passages” is a return to form for the American-born Sachs. The plot concerns three Parisian adults caught up in a sultry love triangle. This was one of the best films I saw at Sundance this year — a sexy and very-French story.

The film stars Franz Rogowski as Tomas, a filmmaker who falls for Adéle Exarchopoulous‘ Agathe, a schoolteacher. Problem is that Tomas is married to Ben Whishaw‘s Martin, who decides to have his own affair. Complications ensue between the two men. It’s a deeply humane treatise on jealousy in relationships, the mental games we play with each other and the complicated nature of monogamy.

“Passages” went on to screen at the Berlinale in February, where it also garnered acclaim. MUBI bought the rights to the film and will release it in theaters on August 4.