Mamada Perdida (Joke van den hof, 2016)

Pleasure Garden

Joke Van den hof’s Mamada Perdida

essay by

Laïka Planchenault

15.12.2024

Let’s start by getting undressed; our subject requires us to be in the nude. No guard should be kept up when handling matters of the heart and the flesh. Now that we have rid ourselves of pretense and have left all intellectual pride at the door, Mamada Perdida invites us to an intimate dance.

Prompted by the curious Vice article “Why Are Cuban Men Putting Pearls in Their Dicks?”, Joke Van den hof’s mind sprouted this steaming tale of love and lust. The Antwerp-based illustrator and animator ponders the consequences of total infatuation. If her playful rendering seems like a far leap from the original story, further consideration has it make perfect sense.

Mamada Perdida—which roughly translates to ‘lost blowjob’—reminds us of the frenzied state so characteristic of first love. What better testament to the follies of love (or is it lust?) than a slew of men putting pearls in their penises in hopes of offering their sexual partners the ultimate pleasure? At this point, it’d be good to circle back to our mutual nakedness and meditate on our own acts of love-induced stupidity.

With revived humbleness, we might now better take in the scene Mamada Perdida sets for us. In bright hues of pink, red, and blue, Van den hof’s paradise unfolds before us. Under the ever-present eye of an unrelenting and throbbing sun, succulent animations slowly warm up our screen. But this world isn’t just hot; it is sweltering and sticky, on the verge of feverish. The landscape is not viable to much else than loitering around. We recognise the setting instantly as one ideal for flushed faces and hushed giggles, the locus of any and every passionate love affair.

And what of the lovers who perpetuate a constant content sighing? They have no names nor clearly discernible faces. They are nobody in particular; they are all of us in love. Van den hof proves herself an expert in corporal affairs. Her lines are sparse, yet her characters abound with carnal fleshiness. Extreme close-ups have bodies morph into abstract shapes and curves. Pulsating mounds of skin sensually fill up the entire screen. The girls swish their hair and stretch their limbs. They moan and sweat. The boys slither in and out of view. They hiss and squirm. With every new shot more intoxicating than the one before, Mamada Perdida is a feast of bodily pleasure.

Mamada Perdida

Joke Van den hof, Belgium, 2016, 6’

It is sometimes said that if a man places a pearl under the skin of his penis, he will bring the woman the greatest pleasure. He grants her the greatest of all pleasures, while she will give him anything he desires. After a playful love dance, she melts into him, at the cost of losing themselves in each other to arrive at their deepest desires.

Mamada Perdida (Joke van den hof, 2016)

There is a line, fine but present, between the erotic and the sexual, between the sensual and the profane. Treading this border translates to a delicate game of occlusion and disclosure. In this sense, we understand the animated film as a potent medium. Van den hof, too, recognises this strength and wields great suggestive power in her seven-minute short. With cheeky images and equally naughty allusions, she rouses in us a welcome feeling of recognition. Entirely disarming, the film reminds us of that deliciously foolish treat called infatuation.

Mamada Perdida’s sensual dance unravels in four chapters. We witness an intricate courtship comprised of an encounter, a seduction, an entanglement, a climax, an offering, and finally another climax. Ever so tongue-in-cheek, the film sways between the abstract and the concrete to show us that game we know too well. We also know, since we are still naked and stripped of our pride, this game leaves no party unscathed. For any depiction of love is irksome when it shows nothing but the saccharine. This is a message Mamada Perdida understands like no other. If Van den hof offers us a sweet tale of innocent love, it is only because she adds bitterness. Our nudeness commands us to admit that behind the frolicking of this dance, of all our dances, we discover a dangerous longing—an intense desire to merge, to unite, to melt into another.

Mamada Perdida confronts us with the reality of this wish being granted. In the film’s land of love, not a single spot of shade is to be found. And so, the beaming heat of desire sees to it that the two lovers melt into each other. The ultimate pleasure, but at what cost? An ejaculation in the form of crying seems like the perfect reflection of that bittersweet truth we all carry inside of us—that great crater that opens up after the dance of love and threatens to tear us to shreds. To love is to lose yourself. Van den hof’s film accepts this with a gentle smile and encourages us all, naked as we are, to do the same.