Morgana (Fantasia Fest)
**Watched for the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.
If you’re looking at the surface of this documentary, “Morgana” is simply about a housewife who, after her divorce, becomes a porn star, and has rejuvenation is her life. And truthfully, that’s enough to make this a highly entertaining movie. (Although fair warning- we do see many NSFW images from Morgana Muses’s films, and just in general.) Below the surface, however, this is about building a second act to one’s life from hopelessness. That makes it inspiring, and should stand as an example for everyone worried about what their life is going to look like when it seems that you’ve spent so much of it surrounded by emptiness.
Morgana Muses is someone for whom porn was an escape. Before she went in front of the camera, she was a housewife in Australia raising kids, living a socially acceptable life, with a husband. The problem was, the marriage got stale for her husband as she had children, and gained weight, growing to morbid obesity. After the marriage ended, she was ostracized from the community, and she fell into depression. She had gone many years celibate in her marriage, and was feeling so down she contemplated suicide, but not before seeking a night of passion with an escort. That night awakened something in her, long forgotten, and it leads her down the path of becoming an adult filmmaker. Her stories have a personal connection that is palpable, and she finds a community that accepts her. Life has more struggles for her, though, which will lead her to another moment of pain, and a check for her on how to react to it.
I can completely understand if the graphic nature of many images we see in Josie Hess and Isabel Peppard’s documentary turns people off on watching it. The porn industry, and adult filmmaking and modelling, is a lightening rod for prurient controversy, and a lot of people see it as not empowering for women. What makes Morgana’s story so affecting, however, and entertaining to watch is not the images we see, though, but the story we are told, in Morgana’s own words- and those of others, like the escort she purchased that night, or Hess, who has worked with Muses on her work. I couldn’t help but think of Bunuel’s “Belle de Jour” during this movie in watching Morgana’s story, of a dissatisfied housewife who becomes an escort to satisfy her erotic desires. What separates Morgana’s story from that classic, however, is not only it being true, but because we see a woman who, at the end of her rope, found a new lease on life, and has forged her own identity as a result. Not without some bumps along the way, but they make her story all the more inspiring to see unfold.
You can read a written interview I did with Hess, Peppard and Muses here.
Morgana Documentary – OFFICIAL TRAILER from House of Gary on Vimeo.
