I started out watching the soon-to-be viral video ‘The Slap’ thinking, yep, pretentious. I watched it through to the end and thought “Meh”. Then……..I went on to watch ‘The Slap – Point of Impact’, which explains exactly why the director filmed the video ‘The Slap‘ and what he experienced and noticed when he did. And, oh my effing God, it now makes sense. And, yes, it’s brilliant.
As the director, Max Landis, explains in the long annotation to the YouTube ‘The Slap – Point of Impact’ video here, he’d come across an all-white studio a few months ago and had wondered what he could film there. Then it hit him (pun intended!). He’d have his friends come into the studio and slap each other. So, he did.
He spent a day pairing up his friends and then filming them do nothing but slap each other. All consensual, all only hit as hard as they wanted to be hit, and all could then hit the other person as many times as they wanted if they had their consent.
His premise was, if a slap was robbed of its violating context (ie: done with permission), it would be more intimate than a kiss.
And was he right? Oh yes. But I’m not going to spoil it by explaining why. You have to watch it for yourself.
Watch The Slap video below, and then go to the follow up The Slap – Point of Impact below that, to see exactly what happened, who behaved how, who hit the hardest or the softest or the most aggressive or the most scared, and what everyone’s reactions were. It’s absolutely fascinating and, yes, as intimate as hell.
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