This Naked Age

1932

56 min.

Documentary

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The origins of the nudist movement are traced from ancient Greece to the present.

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Audience Member

With every advent of film, whether it be for still photography or moving pictures, capturing the nude body has probably always been on some people's mind. Not that I'm much of an expert on the history of pornography, I was shocked to find that even in the silent era of film there was porn. Director Michael Mindlin's This Nude World isn't pornographic, but I question its claim that everything the film has to show is purely for educational purposes. I'm sure that with the strict regulations put on films in the 30's the filmmakers were forces to label This Nude World as an educational movie. This Nude World travels the globe to places like America, France and Germany and showcases different groups of people who prefer to live life without the burden of clothes. The film doesn't get exploitative in anyway with its nudity, but it does waste some potential with featuring all of these nude people. Aside from a few conversations with people who run the various nudist camps, the film doesn't allow the actual nudist themselves to speak. Instead, the film is mostly narrated by the disembodied voice of Leo Donnelly. If this film was meant to educate non-nudist, it didn't do too great a job at it. Most of the film is just hundreds of naked people doing various activities like cooking naked, going swimming naked and working out naked. Yes, the film contains a lot of naked exercise sequences. The movie is all for showing naked breast and butts, but it conveniently cuts out any shot of frontal nudity. Also, while the film does feature children nudist, none of their scenes are as upsetting or disturbing as you might imagine them to be. It's kind of hard to rate a film like This Nude World. It is a decently made documentary, but squanders its potential of revealing early cinema goers to the world of nudists. But it still takes some chances, and what it does offer is enough to keep your attention through its less than sixty minute run-time. If we are going to classify this as an educational film, well it ranks as one of the most unusual I've seen.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/25/23

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Michael Mindlin

Director

Leo Donnelly

Narrator

Jan Gay

Screenwriter

Michael Mindlin

Producer

Andre D'Melier

Cinematographer

George O'Messerly

Cinematographer

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Synopsis

The origins of the nudist movement are traced from ancient Greece to the present.

Director: Michael Mindlin
Screenwriter: Jan Gay
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): May 5, 2017