Well, is it, or isn't it?  Is it a film or is it a video?

How do you define this space-age computer process that makes video look artfully distant and distantly provocative?  It's stylish, elegant, unearthly, sometimes a little stilted, but, sure as hell, fascinating to watch.  As a part of the "process" that defines this style of shoot, the models always seem to snarl, curl their lips and have je ne sais quoi attitudes.

The overall effect of Principles Of Lust reminds you of those Euro-sleek, pretersensual clarion calls to the department store perfume counter at holiday time - you know the ones, "everywoman alive adores..." Come spend - share the experience.  Share the charge card invoice.

Call it "Son of Night Trips," the process that imparts a quasi-film look to video takes a little getting used to and may not suit the fancy of your average raincoater.  But if you feel secure about your shit not stinking, you'll have no problems whatsoever embracing the concept.

With Principles Of Lust, I'm not quite sure whether director Michael Ninn (see this month's Wet Short) is selling sex or saxophones.  To be sure, moody, husky jazz sax (rendered in lip synch by Sean Michaels) is one of the key mystical elements in the mysterioso sequences (they look like commercials for adult cable TV programming) that compose the body of this work.

Taylor Wane and Janet Jacme face off in an obtuse dialogue session much the same way as Victoria Paris and Alex Jordan do in Ninn's Two Sisters.  Wane and Jacme look aristocratic and aloof as they spout a scatological series of non-sequiturs about power, sex and money that could just as well be lyrics from a Meatloaf song for all I know.  (The jazz music is strategically intrusive to mask the fact that we're not exactly getting a Ph.D. discourse on the subjects of power, sex and money.)

Several scenes stand out head and shoulders from the pack.  The Taylor Wane/Jonathan Morgan encounter is not your ordinary blowjob.  It's a meditation on the art of taking a wad of white goo in the mouth.  Wane later pairs off with Cal jammer and the two of them are photographed as though they've been to the end of the tunnel and seen the white light.  The music that accompanies this pulse-pounding doggie scene sounds like an organ recital in the church of hell.  It's a weird but captivating mix of sensual elements.

When Ted Wilson makes a wish with Alana's thighs (ooh, that spread hurts) and gives it to her up the ass, you swear he's going to split her in half.  For you D.P. mavens, T.T. Boy and Cal Jammer make a Saki sandwich with Cal matriculating Saki's asshole like a divining rod that's just discovered water in the Sinai desert.

So don't get the impression you're going to be watching lots of hoity-toity, fu-fu porn here.  The stuff's nasty.  It's fucking elegant, but it's nasty, and that's what makes Principles Of Lust lustful fun.