Starring: Sigurour Hjararson, Pall Arason and Tom Mitchell
Directed By: Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math
Rated: R
Running Time: 75 minutes
Drafthouse Films
Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 stars
I literally stared at the computer screen for a couple of minutes not typing and thought to myself, “How do I even begin to describe “The Final Member”?” By the way, I know that’s my job smartasses. I could easily make a couple of penis puns or I could switch things up and talk about how this will be the only documentary you will ever see where male genitalia is on full display in all its severed glory. So let’s just give this the ol’ college try.
Miles from the Arctic Circle in an Icelandic town I can’t pronounce, Husavik, sits an incredibly unique museum. It is the Icelandic Phallological Museum, the world’s only penis museum. I’ll just go ahead and let that sink in for a moment…still with me? Good. Its founder, Sigurour Hjararson, has spent just over 40 years collecting ding dongs from all over the world, from every animal and species. Mounted on the walls are towering animals dongs and in jars lined across the store one can view an assortment of male animal genitals. It is truly the showcase of a lifetime of work. It’s just missing one mammal in particular. It is missing the penis of the most self-conscious creature on the planet, the human. Still with me?
You would think in this day and age of traveling skeleton, human body exhibits and people touting the corpse of King Tut, it wouldn’t be that hard to find an unused penis just lying around somewhere. Not only do you have to deal with some hefty legal work, you also got to deal with some massive egos attached to your future specimens. Hjararson has landed a local legend in terms of sexual promiscuity, Pall Arason. He’s an aging man who has nothing, but the memories of his sexual conquests of hundreds of women and the blushing whispers of women saying that he’s well endowed. Although in one of the most awkward documented moments, a plaster cast of his pecker proves futile as he can’t quite maintain an erection.
Size does matter in Iceland too. Anything below the five inch mark is considered useless. Not only is it a common belief that the recommended length is five inches (or 12.7 centimeters for you folks across the big pond), but it is also a well-known piece of folklore that you might as well just lop off your wing dinger if it’s less than those solid five. With people calling into question Pall’s length, that’s when Tom Mitchell enters the fray. His mindset is, “You don’t have to wait until I die, I’ll gladly snip my monster off now and let you have it.” He even gets the stars and stripes tattooed on the head of his manhood so that future museum goers will know that that’s an American penis. “The Final Member” in just the first couple of minutes instantly becomes a fleshy “mine’s bigger” battle.
While there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, “The Final Member” provides a subtle humility to our genital obsessed gentlemen. The idea of mortality is a big theme even though it faintly hovers in the background. Pall is at death’s door and shows signs of worry. Will he actually be remembered as a living, walking, sex-machine? That’s really all he has left. After a couple of moments with Mitchell, you can tell he has a seriously unhealthy relationship with his own penis. He’s borderline obsessive about having his wiener on display. While both of their reasons seem a bit bizarre, that’s how they’ve lived their lives. They’ve spent years being proud of their dangly parts and want to be immortalized in Hjararson’s museum. It’s like a writer wanting his works publish, a filmmaker wanting their work produced or a soldier crying as his name is etched into a memorial wall. Hjararson himself hopes he can complete the museum before he meets his untimely end so that his life wasn’t wasted on collecting the male anatomy.
“The Final Member” is an immensely engaging documentary that really showcases how vain men can be. It’s one of the few movies that I loved, but I don’t know if I can really recommend it to the average person. I can already see the scrunched up faces of disgust as I lay out the purpose of the documentary. I can hear the laughs, but at the same time I can visualize the waning interest. If you don’t mind constantly seeing penises, I would definitely recommend you watch “The Final Member”.
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