Pillion Review, Interpretation, & Importance

Spoilers

Most gay cinema and shows have a fairly limited scope when it comes to the social issues which affect gay men such as AIDS, coming out, or victim-hood in society while others serve mainly as porn. Personally, I was not a fan of heated rivalry as it’s didn’t cover ground already covered to tedium and the sex scenes in the show didn’t really serve the plot in any meaningful way.

Pillion breaks from the established norms and serves as a fairly accurate portrayal of the more traditional leather community even though Ray, for me, actually serves as the antagonist in the film. Every sex scene in the film serves a deliberate purpose and is memorable because of each one serves as a benchmark in Colin’s personal growth.

When we meet Colin he is on a date which his parents set up with someone who he has no apparent interest in. He doesn’t approach Ray, Ray approaches him having noticed his interest and immediately looks at Colin as an object, doesn’t bother to learn anything about him and invites him to hook up in a dark alley where he only commands what he wants, shows no appreciation, then ghost’s Colin. Colin’s performance giving oral shows inexperience.

Following the alley blow job Colin texts Ray several time showing him to be needy despite the lack of reciprocation from Ray. This becomes a major theme in the film.

I should point out that this film uses dialogue very sparingly which helps the audience feel Colin’s growing isolation and the coldness in the relationship but what’s really interesting to me is how despite the limited dialogue we know exactly what Colin is feeling in EVERY scene. Seriously, Harry Melling gives a knockout performance. Part of what broke me in the film is that we are made to feel Colin’s emotions through acting alone.

Not just simply from the costume change and hair buzzing we see Colin’s true self come out when he is welcomed and accepted, probably for the first time in his life, to the leather community. The contrast between the community scenes and his family scenes may not be as overt but they are there and powerful. His parents are supportive of him being gay but never take the time to understand him and Colin doesn’t really share what kind of a relationship he is in with them which makes the dinner scene so much more intense as his mother goes from not understanding to fully disapproving of the relationship. Now, given what kind of person Ray truly is she is right to do so BUT she does this without regard to what Colin wants.

Now, you may have come to this blog because of my politics but I’m not going to hide who I really am. I was in a 10 year D/s relationship which I have no regrets about even though it is now over. Frankly, I don’t think Colin regrets his relationship with Ray but even if he does because Ray is a shit Dom (I will go into that soon), the relationship was critical for his personal growth and represents a trend right now which I feel is incredibly dangerous.

Right now I am seeing a lot of new subs jumping straight into CNC (consensual non-consent) which was, in the old days, basically like flagging orange (anything goes). Despite Colin’s personal limits never being crossed the film does illustrate why this is not the way to start your journey into kink.

As I mentioned, Ray starts cold and despite one day where he acts like human with empathy his character arch returns to that cold state. Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with a cold, unappreciative Dom who treats someone as an object the problem with Ray is that he communicates nothing at the beginning. There is no negotiation. Ray doesn’t recognize that Colin is inexperienced and doesn’t actually know what he wants or what his limits are. Ray rarely shows that he even sees Colin as a person and when he does he immediately reverts back into what he was before. It’s like a cold sensitive person trying to do a cold plunge, get ankle deep then run back to the shore screaming “nope nope nope!”

I think this is pretty well illustrated in the dinner scene where Ray is supporting Colin by showing up but has no interest in softening the blow for Colin’s parent which could lead to serious consequences in Colin’s familial relationships. Later he doesn’t show up to support Colin at his mother’s funeral.

Even his community actions are at the expense of Colin’s needs. It’s clear that Colin isn’t humiliated by being teased and passed up to suck his master’s cock, he’s broken by it. Yeah, he gets relief when Ray comes back and then fucks him but in the next scene we see that Colin is still carrying that wound.

Throughout the film we see that Colin starts to feel what is missing from the relationship and every request is ignored or shut down. Colin isn’t voicing a want, he’s voicing needs which Ray has no interest in which eventually leads to Colin acting out.

It was surprising to me that Ray responded to the acting out with compassion despite the extreme nature of Colin’s transgressions though it’s hard for me to tell if the “day off” was Ray’s way of saying goodbye or if it represented a reality Ray wasn’t prepared to face. It was the first time I saw his character as being a real human with empathy until the very next scene where he just left.

The closing I think is where the central message really lands which is that Colin seeks out a similar relationship but only if his basic needs are tended to as well. Taking this back to CNC, the pitfall here is that people without experience are consenting to something they have no point of reference to just as Colin dove into a rather one sided and intense D/s (I would go so far as call it a master/slave dynamic) relationship which one can only really know they want having been in a less demanding and mentally challenging relationship in the past.

For me the understanding of one’s needs and limits are central to good BDSM and I don’t know if there is a good way of discovering those needs and limits except through experience. Negotiation, check ins, and reassessing our relationships as they progress is the key to longevity and personal satisfaction. Yeah, subs need to be satisfied too. This is a common misconception that it’s all about the Dom. In my early years I chastised my leather brother and my Dom pulled me aside and reminded me that everything a sub does is out of love. He was also fond of saying that being a Dom is hard work.

I think Ray, as a Dom, is only focused on what HE gets out of the relationship which is what made it toxic. If a Dom is cold to a sub it should be because he knows his sub wants to be an object. If a Dom humiliates a sub it’s because the sub wants to be humiliated. Cuckholding, as ray did with the blow job at camp, was done without Colin indicating that he was into cuckholding… hell, everything Ray does comes from the assumption the Colin wants it, otherwise why would he be there. What Ray fails to understand is when there is a one sided power dynamic the sub feels like they don’t have a voice so often they can be pushed in ways they don’t want to be pushed which is what leads to Colin’s acting out.

D/s has an inherent feedback loop where the Dom’s needs and desires are being served by a sub who’s needs and desires are being served by filling the Dom’s needs and desires. When this becomes truly one way the relationship fails regardless of the style of relationship.

This film is about personal growth and what impresses me the most is how much is shown rather than told. We are forced into Colin’s perspective from the acting, sound design, lighting, and the result is that we feel what he feels and when Colin moves on to his next Dom we’re relieved because he’s starting the relationship knowing what he needs. We don’t know if it turns out well but we are given hope that the next relationship will be more loving, reciprocal while still being the D/s that he wants. He is looking for balance which is exactly what we all need to find but we aren’t going to know that we need it or appreciate it til we’ve felt what it’s like to go without it.