Tickled Review

<p>The world of competitive endurance tickling is one that could easily be used to humiliate everyone involved&period; This is something that you witness during the film through the manipulation and blackmail of these people by the ones responsible&period; The directors of this documentary could be just as guilty of that if they&&num;8217&semi;re not careful&period; On more than one occasion&comma; I could argue that they are guilty of exploiting these people and making fun of the &&num;8220&semi;sport&&num;8221&semi; in the process&period; But at the end of the day&comma; <em>Tickled <&sol;em>is a well rounded documentary that does a good enough job at exploring the basics&comma; even with all those issues&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Starring and directed by Dylan Reeve and David Farrier&comma; the two men go looking for something beyond what they bargained for&period; Competitive endurance tickling looks to be fairly innocent&comma; at first sight&period; Just a few guys tickling another guy that&&num;8217&semi;s strapped down&period; Guilty of being homo-erotic&comma; but that&&num;8217&semi;s never hurt anyone&period; Upon a further look&comma; Farrier is insulted by Jane O&&num;8217&semi;Brien media&comma; the group responsible for these videos&period; Rather than back away and look into another subject&comma; this only rowels up Farrier&&num;8217&semi;s need to search for the truth and what could really be going on with these people&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;110389" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-110389" style&equals;"width&colon; 2000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-110389 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03120257&sol;Tickled&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;&lt&semi;em&gt&semi;Tickled&lt&semi;&sol;em&gt&semi;&comma; HBO Documentary Films&rpar;" width&equals;"2000" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-110389" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Tickled<&sol;em>&comma; HBO Documentary Films&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Tickled <&sol;em>could honestly go any number of ways&period; Farrier and Reeve could make a film detailing the obsession and how far they&&num;8217&semi;re willing to go to find the truth&period; Or there&&num;8217&semi;s the look into what brings young men into this sport and why they keep going back&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s even the exploration of what the people responsible are trying to hide and why&period; <em>Tickled <&sol;em>exposes only the bare minimum on each subject and has no interest to go any further&period; Aside from a half-assed explanation of the possible motivation behind it all&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s almost no personal insight to any party involved&period; For the title of the documentary&comma; it takes it fairly literally without expanding on what it has initially documented&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;110391" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-110391" style&equals;"width&colon; 2000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-110391 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;07&sol;03120222&sol;Tickled-2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;&lt&semi;em&gt&semi;Tickled&lt&semi;&sol;em&gt&semi;&comma; HBO Documentary Films&rpar;" width&equals;"2000" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-110391" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Tickled<&sol;em>&comma; HBO Documentary Films&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>There&&num;8217&semi;s a scene in question that makes me nervous to say the movie cares about the people it&&num;8217&semi;s documenting&period; Finding another person involved with &&num;8220&semi;tickling&&num;8221&semi; videos&comma; Farrier and Reeve meet up with this man and are present for a tickle shoot&period; Filmed in slow motion and with emphasized sound effects&comma; a very muscular man is tickled with various objects&period; Obviously shot with comedic effect in mind&comma; there is nothing wrong with adding some humility to an admittedly silly subject&period; Unfortunately&comma; it feels like these people&comma; while present and aware of the filming&comma; feel exploited and used to be made fun of&period; Tickling&comma; while silly from the mainstream&comma; is a fetish&period; Fetishes are outside of the norm&comma; but that does not mean they should be made fun of&period; These are people with desires outside of the ordinary and just because it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t align with most people it shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t mean that they should be open to humiliation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However upsetting the depiction of this fetish is&comma; the directors do a fine job of uncovering numerous details into this underground movement&period; <em>Tickled <&sol;em>is a film that takes its time in delivering the minute details of the organization behind it all&period; The patience is welcome&comma; but for a film that only runs 92 minutes&comma; it feels like it&&num;8217&semi;s extending itself to feature length rather than feel natural with its pacing&period; Aside from all of this&comma; it is a film that does a good job looking into a subject we haven&&num;8217&semi;t seen before&period; There just needs to be more of an effort put into the filmmaking itself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;