Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
One of my all time favorites.
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
View MoreStrong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
View MoreEach time this documentary is broadcast in Australia, I am reminded of how creepy it is. Disguised by the premise of a young women making a "diary video", the crew is granted access to film without any objections from the naturists in the picture. Using this footage relevantly is always going to be tricky for the footage editor.The resulting pictures are of those few exhibitionists you find in naturist groups -- that minority who are all about "look at me" rather than just celebrating their personal liberty. There is even a man who tells his group that his "circumcised penis" is where their attention should be.And then, much fuss is made of naturists who keep their bodies free of pubic hair. All this fuss even after we see an underwater camera shot steadfastly follow a teenager swimming naked, and then the same teenager sunbathing. We then see one of these "shaven naturists" in a full-screen close-up of genitals being shaved. No hair could possibly be seen before the shaving session, nevertheless a shaving demonstration is apparently warranted. No such need to show any evidence that this shaven person is actually part of a naturist social group, unsurprisingly their tall stories about their experiences appear to be fantasy.Creepiest of all was the camera treatment given a pre-teen child playing paintbomb games with adults, all nude. As the child moves away from the group mid-play so it can launch another attack on the group, the camera leaves the group and focuses singularly on the child. This predatory manner contradicts and emphasises the words spoken much later by the titular "Teenage Nudist", when she describes the discomfort of children not allowed to choose who sees their bodies. (Where's Dexter when you need him?) As expected, the footage turns out to be too tricky for the film-maker to make relevant to the premise of "diary video".
View MoreBianca Badham is your typical British 18 year old girl of the 00s: fun loving, intelligent, gentle natured, open minded, and loves her music and surfing the Internet. But there is one thing that she does not share in common with most teenage girls: she was born and raised in a nudist club with her mother, step-father and sister. Upon leaving high school, she decides to spend a more interesting summer than most girls who hit the pubs and go out on the hunt for boyfriends: looking for naturists her own age. Her searches on the Internet open her up to a new generation of young nudists who are trying it for their own purposes: a Muslim architect student who closets it from his parents, a young guy who enjoys hiking in the woods naked and tries to cajole his unwilling fiancé into going naked with him, a nude bike ride through the streets of London, a teenage girl who actually got her boyfriend to try nudism first (unlike most relationships where it's usually the guy who is interested and the girlfriend who is reserved). In all it's a cute documentary that paints up the naturist movement in England and America, warts and all including a few questionable characters whom nudists and non-nudists don't want in their lives. But it's going to be a long long time till the masses will finally come around to the nudist's way of thinking about the body and this is a step in the right direction as a whole.
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