This Naked Age: A Very Strange History Lesson

If you are looking for a breezy, fun watch for a Saturday night, stay far away from this one. This movie is strictly for people who are deeply, weirdly curious about how we got from Ancient Greece to, well, people hanging out in the woods without their clothes on.

It feels less like a movie and more like a slideshow your grandfather might have forced you to watch in a dark basement. The editing is… let’s just say it’s very loose.

Sometimes the footage doesn't even match what the narrator is talking about. It’s like watching a train wreck where the cars are filled with people in bad swimsuits from the 1930s. It’s distracting in a way that feels almost intentional.

Wait, what is this actually doing?

The film starts by trying to make nudism sound like this grand, intellectual movement that began centuries ago. But then it just shows people playing tag in a field. It’s hard to keep a straight face when the narrator is being so dramatic about a game of volleyball.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of This Naked Age (1932) through its definitive frames.

Honestly, it reminds me a bit of The Spirit of the Red Cross in how it tries to frame everything with a weird, stiff importance. Everything feels like a lecture you didn't sign up for.

There is this one sequence where the music shifts into this weirdly upbeat, jaunty piano tune while the screen shows people just… sitting there. It’s genuinely funny, though I’m 99% sure it wasn't supposed to be. ☀️

• The narrator’s voice is about as soothing as a sandpaper massage.
• I’m still not sure what the "ancient" footage was actually supposed to represent.
• There is a lot of staring into the distance. Like, a lot.
• The whole thing has the energy of a public access show that ran out of budget halfway through.

You can tell they were really trying to reach for something higher here. They wanted to make a point about nature and honesty and the human form. But it just comes off as a collection of grainy clips that have been sitting in a box for way too long. 🎞️

It’s not as energetic as Road to Rio, obviously. It lacks any of that sparkle. It just kind of sits there. If you watch this, you'll probably spend half the time wondering why it exists at all. I know I did.

Still, there’s a weird charm to it. It’s so earnest. It’s so completely convinced that you want to hear this history. It’s a total oddity of a film that I’m kind of glad I saw, but I am never, ever watching it again. 🤷‍♂️