French writer Michel Houellebecq loses bid to ban Dutch porn film

French writer Michel Houellebecq performs during the show “Existence a Basse Altitude,” a creation around a collection of his poems with music by Romain Poncet, aka Traumer, during the 46th edition of the Printemps de Bourges music festival in Bourges, central France, on April 20, 2022. A Dutch court judge on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, rejected a bid by the top-selling novelist to ban an erotic movie in which he himself stars. GUILLAUME SOUVANT / AFP

THE HAGUE, Netherlands—The plot could have come from one of controversial French author Michel Houellebecq’s own dark novels—an aging writer features in a porn film, only to regret it later.

But the drama played out for real in a Dutch court on Tuesday, March 28, when a judge rejected a bid by the top-selling novelist to ban an erotic movie in which he himself stars.

A trailer released in January showed the shirtless 67-year-old kissing and fondling a young woman in bed in the movie, “Kirac 27,” Dutch filmmaker Stefan Ruitenbeek said.

Houellebecq, whose best-selling works include “Submission” and “Atomized,” complained that the film damaged his reputation and that he had signed an unfair contract under the influence of alcohol.

An Amsterdam judge disagreed.

“It is incomprehensible why Houellebecq participated in the recordings if he found the agreement really problematic,” the judge said in a written ruling, dismissing the author’s application and ordering the writer to pay 1,393 euros in costs.

Houellebecq found the verdict “very disappointing,” his Dutch lawyer Jacqueline Schaap told AFP.

“Mr. Houellebecq is seriously considering an urgent appeal,” she said.

In February Houellebecq lost a similar bid in a French court.

‘Porn star’

It’s a bizarre chapter even by the standards of the bad boy of French literature, whose books sell millions but who is often accused of misogyny and far-right sympathies.

It began during a dinner in Paris in November 2022, when Houellebecq’s wife Lysis told Ruitenbeek that the writer wanted to “make a porn film to counter his gloom,” according to the judgment.

The director filmed Houellebecq having sex in Paris with a woman called Jini van Rooijen, a philosophy student with whom the director works.

The French author and his wife then came to Amsterdam in December, where they signed a contract for the film.

The director said in the trailer that Houellebecq got in touch after his honeymoon in Morocco was called off due to security fears, and that he was depressed because Lysis had “spent a month booking prostitutes” only for it to fall through.

“I told him I knew plenty of girls in Amsterdam who would have sex with a famous writer out of curiosity, and that I would arrange the hotel for him if I had permission to film everything,” said Ruitenbeek.

But Houellebecq said in court papers seen by AFP that the contract put him “at the mercy” of Ruitenbeek.

“I was tired, the day had been long and the necessary wine had already been drunk,” the writer said.

“I don’t have the ambition to become a porn star at my age.”

Relations were severed soon after the filming, and deteriorated even further after the release of the trailer.

The writer also complained about Ruitenbeek giving an interview to the Vice news site in February, in which he said that Houellebecq was “really good in bed.”

‘Integrity’

The Dutch judge found that while the contract was “far from balanced” and gave the director extensive rights, it was not illegal.

The evidence was “insufficient to assume that his judgement was impaired by fatigue and alcohol” or depression, the ruling added.

Ruitenbeek said he was relieved by the decision.

“It has always been my intention to make a portrait with integrity. Hopefully Michel is happy with the result,” he said in a statement released by his lawyer.

Houellebecq is a controversial writer, and often accused of tapping into right-wing fears over Islam in France.

In 2015, Houellebecq published the international headline-grabbing “Submission” about a Muslim winning the presidency.

He was tipped as a contender for the Nobel Literature Prize last year, although it ultimately went to Annie Ernaux of France who called Houellebecq’s ideas “completely reactionary and anti-feminist.”  /ra

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