Actor and director Paco León has apologized again for one of the scenes in the film ‘Kiki’, in which one of the protagonists put his partner to sleep with sleeping pills in order to mistreat her. León already apologized for this plot in 2021, five years after the film was released, and has published two other messages on his social networks regarding the case of Gisèle Pélicot in France, raped by more than 50 men after being drugged for her. husband.
“Listening to the statements of those who raped her, it is true that we live in what they call rape culture, which seems to be words and rape culture really exists,” said the Spanish actor and director, who added: “And it is in everyone.”
León now claims that he can’t stop thinking about Kiki’s plot and recalled that he had already apologized for that scene. “After years, I realized that I was idealizing rape and chemical submission, that it seems that rape cannot exist in marriage and, unfortunately, it does,” he said.
The actor and director had said in 2021 that he considered it “unforgivable to have romanticized a systematic rape.” León then thanked the people “who made me see this” and promised to “continue working and learning.”
“Kiki” was filmed in 2016 and tells several stories of sexual philias and erotic practices. One of them was that of a man who drugged his wife, who had a motor disability, to abuse her while she was unconscious. “I am very sorry that I did not have the sensitivity at that time to approach the subject and that I frivolously touched on this subject,” he said in his apology at the time.
Paco León’s film is a remake of the Australian film The Little Death (2014), directed by newcomer Josh Lawson. Spanish critics differentiated it from that one by exploiting a more comic and extravagant profile. Even though, deep down, it was about the same thing: the sexual paraphilias of a series of strangers. In fact, Lawson also includes several scenes surrounding the imagery of rape.
The case that is now shaking France has motivated Leon to return once again to this scene from his film. “I think it is obvious that everyone feels disgust, repulsion and incomprehension in the face of this type of monster,” he said. “I remember with horror things that I myself wrote,” Leon insisted. “I am ashamed of not having had this sensitivity.”
