We Interviewed the Director of the Porn Film with Michel Houellebecq
“If women want to sleep with him, they can go to my website and contact me.”
Poet, novelist, actor, essayist: Michel Houellebecq, the world's most widely read living French author, a Prix Goncourt winner and a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, has many strings to his artistic bow. In recent days, he can claim to have added another: porn star. A few seconds of a teaser showing him snogging a young woman were enough to send the internet into a frenzy. But what lies behind the project? Stefan Ruitenbeek, the film's Dutch director, sheds light on a project that is deeper than it appears and that he considers art.
VICE: Who are you, Stefan Ruitenbeek?
Stefan Ruitenbeek: I am a 41-year-old artist living in Amsterdam, and I make films about the art world. My project is a platform called KIRAC, Keeping It Real Art Critics, which I launched in 2016. The porn film featuring Michel Houellebecq is the twenty-seventh film we have produced. We operate through patronage.
What was the project's original aim?
The aim was to portray the world I lived in, the art world. I pretended to be an art critic, and that gave me access to that milieu: museums, collectors and, of course, parties. Honestly, what mattered to me was not so much being an art critic as being around these people, investigating so that I could make films about them.
How did you meet Michel Houellebecq?
We started emailing in 2019 about one of my films, KIRAC episode 16. The film was a confrontation between a museum patron and its director. It turns out that the man running the museum is a Marxist, and the art he shows is boring as fuck. It is just stuff about poor people in Africa. The discussion drifted towards political opinions in art, and Michel Houellebecq's name came up, since he is known for his right-wing views. My wife ended up telling the camera that this writer is deeply pathetic and fully aware of it. I admired him greatly and was curious to see what he thought of that analysis. He replied to my email saying he did not entirely agree. We continued exchanging emails, and then I suggested meeting in Paris to discuss an artistic performance I wanted to organise in Amsterdam around his work.
What was that first meeting like?
He did not show up! His wife, Lysis Houellebecq, came instead. She told me: “My husband is too depressed to go to Amsterdam for this performance project. The only thing that makes him happy is sleeping with lots of women. But it is getting harder and harder to find women willing to sleep with him. We can't find groupies, and he doesn't like paying prostitutes.”
I see. Whose idea was it to make a porn film?
His wife's and his. They had seen one of our films, Honey Pot, in which a young student, Jini van Rooijen, was supposed to sleep with a far-right guy, Sid Lukkassen. That made them want to do something similar. Lysis Houellebecq told me: “If you really want to help him, you have to turn him into a porn star.” I couldn't say no; that would have been rude. I want to give him what he wants. I want to make him happy. I have a difficult relationship with my father; I have no father figure in my life, so I often want to please older men. It is not just a relationship I have with Michel Houellebecq; it is the result of my traumas.
So you did not need to persuade him?
Not at all! The day after that first meeting with his wife, we shot the first scene at his home in Paris. A girl I work with, Jini van Rooijen, had accompanied me to Paris, and she immediately offered to do the scene because she loves the writer.
Was Michel Houellebecq comfortable with the camera?
He is very energetic. On the first day, he slept with Jini at his house in Paris, and they got along very well. It was incredible. We did lots of positions, blowjobs, cunnilingus. In his books, the characters who resemble him are ugly and cannot get women, but in real life Houellebecq is a seducer. He is very good in bed; he fucks like a madman. He is really virile with women. I was not expecting that at all. I thought he would come in three minutes, but he fucked for hours. He is a real man.
Who was the performer in that first scene?
Jini van Rooijen. She is a philosophy student and an OnlyFans model. People at her university stigmatised her because she slept with lots of men. She was publicly called a slut. We began working together on Honey Pot, when she was supposed to sleep with a far-right activist on camera. At that time, I was questioning this new, very prudish sexual norm. We are seeing a return to morality on the left, with wokism and MeToo, but also on the far right. Back then, I wanted to confront that.
How long did filming take?
Altogether, we filmed for six days in Amsterdam and Paris. The film does not consist only of sex scenes. Houellebecq discusses philosophy with the girls between scenes; we went to restaurants, and so on.
How many people took part in filming?
Four women slept with Houellebecq in total. His wife Lysis was also present throughout the shoot.
What was her role?
She took part in some scenes on camera, but she also put the girls at ease, brought water and offered them advice. She was like a sexual assistant.
Ultimately, what do you want to show about Houellebecq in this film?
This author has become immortal through his books. His work is there for eternity; what he has created will remain for centuries. But today, Michel Houellebecq is also an old body that will soon die. Even though his body is nearing the end, it demands sex, touch, orgasms and happiness. You can be the greatest literary author, you can make history, but in the end you remain this little body, this little piece of flesh that will not live much longer. So this film is about intimacy, love and what it means to be a depressed old man of sixty-six. For Michel Houellebecq, it was not just about sex. He was also interested in the meaning of the performance: a writer at the end of his life becoming a porn star. He could simply have paid a prostitute if it were only about fucking.
His relationship with his wife is also an important part of the film, isn't it?
It is true that the film is also about Lysis Houellebecq: a devoted woman trying every possible way to make her man happy. It is very hard; she is really suffering. This woman is entirely devoted to her husband, but it is impossible to make him happy because he functions like a black hole. He sucks up all the joy around him and makes it disappear. His wife is helpless. He can write as many wonderful books as he likes, but he will always feel just as shitty. When he fucks, on the other hand, he is happy, but two or three days later he is back at rock bottom. For me, it is very shocking to see someone in such distress. I have never seen anything like it in my life. It moves me deeply.
What did you discover about the author during filming?
Apart from the fact that he fucks really well, what I discovered is that Lysis is a much more complicated character than the women in his books. When there is love in his books, the female characters are magnificent, uncomplicated women who give him their bodies. Lysis suffers a great deal from being Michel Houellebecq's wife. She bends over backwards to help her husband out of his depression, but she is completely powerless.
I also discovered that he is very manipulative. He always gets what he wants, and frankly I admire that. I email him about an artistic event, and a few weeks later he is sleeping with my performers, with his wife organising everything on top of that. It is incredible!
Do you think Houellebecq contradicts himself when he says the West is decadent, now that he himself has become a porn star?
I do not think there is a contradiction between observing that our society is decadent and becoming decadent yourself. Traditional values were lost long ago, so why not become a porn star?
What are your next projects?
We are finishing the edit of this film, which will come out in March. Then we are going to make another film with Houellebecq. If women want to sleep with him, they can go to my website and contact me.
Thank you, Stefan.