Released | Jul 28th, 2022 |
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Running Time | 114 Min. |
Directors | Ron Rex, Von Ferro |
Company | Lust Cinema |
DVD Extra | None |
Cast | Skye Blue (I), Romeo (I), Doryann Marguet, Ariana Van X, Tula Vida |
Critical Rating | AAAA 1/2 |
Genres | Drama, Editor's Choice, Foreign |
A wealthy artist and patron of the arts has died unexpectedly and her will specifies that her estate—Euro-villa, art collection and money—will go to one of the four artists invited to make the best work of art during a month-long isolation at the patron's villa.
One of the candidates is Skye Blue, shunted into a small bedroom ("Spartan ambiance—it'll help me focus") and taking solace with a polished stone dildo sitting on a bedside shelf as a decoration in an AVN Award-nominated scene. After some frenemy-based one-upsmanship at the dinner table, which is exacerbated by Blue's defiant (recent) sobriety, Blue retreats to her room and is joined by erotic video game creator Ariana Van X, bearing a bottle of wine and a camera to take reference pictures of Blue for the videogame she's creating. When Van X complains about how it's tough to arrange sex as a single mother, her intentions become clear and they get together later that night in a scene that ends with a was-it-a-dream ambiguity. But there's nothing ambiguous about the AVN Award nomination the scene received.
After a week, the other contenders have made plans for their esoteric works, but Blue is blocked, unable to come up with an idea. A confrontation with contender (organic sculpture) Romeo reveals his past with Blue, reinforced with flashbacks of them hooking up. Blue peeps at Romeo as he lends a sympathetic ear to the patron's assistant Tula Vida—a frustrated painter—as she complains ("That woman was a dictator. I once made a round trip to Paris in one day just to get her a croissant!") on a terrace, where he proceeds to seduce her. When Blue is paired with moody Doryann Marguet for a creativity exercise, she writes in a notebook as he runs around her, naked, yelling "I'm alive!"—which inspires Van X to hook up with him.
At the proposed final presentation of the works, Vida live-calls the contenders to reveal that she has absconded with all the patron's money and they're on their own. Blue, anguished, yells, "Bring me the wine!" and presents her artwork anyway: an erotic dance highlighted with lasers reflected with mirrors. The orgy that follows might not have been in the original plan.
A Taste of Kunst is a throwback to the best of '70s porno chic: a contrived situation, a series of zipless encounters, and a full-cast orgy as a finale. It received four nominations for the 2023 AVN Awards—the two scenes already mentioned, plus Best International Production and Skye Blue for Supporting Actress—and is ideal for couples.