Søren Green | Oktober Dreng (October Boy) / 2018

the gay gaze

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tomas Lagermand Lundme and Søren Green (screenplay), Søren Green (director), Oktober Dreng (October Boy) / 2018 [29 minutes]

 

14-year-old Thomas (Elias Buddde Christensen) begins his first days in his new Copenhagen school, having just moved to the city with his mother. He soon meets up with Emma (Esther Marie Boisen Berg), who notices he likes to draw and suggests they might spend some time together sketching—a clever way to meet the new boy.

    Mads (Noa Risbro Hjerrild) also meets the new boy in the locker room where, watching him sketch a drawing on his wrist, asks him if he might give him a temporary tattoo on his arm. Just out of the shower, his arm isn’t entirely dry yet, and he asks Thomas to blow on it. Little does Thomas seem to recognize that the battle for his attention is already underway.

     When they meet up to share drawings, Emma wants an arm drawing as well, but Thomas claims he doesn’t have his proper pens, she asking him to visit her again when he can do the tattoo.

      But it’s when Thomas meets up with Emma’s older brother Mikkel (Jacob August Ottensten), a young artist whose drawings Emma has borrowed to show them as her own to Thomas, that things truly begin to change for the 14-year-old. Danish director Søren Green’s camera makes it clear that the younger boy is immediately attracted to his crotch and the hair around Mikkel’s navel. And when the older boy invites him to the Academy, after praising Thomas’ drawings, Thomas is drawn into new possibilities without him perhaps even being aware of it.

 

     Even a trip to the bathroom, after which he spots the naked Mikkel pulling on his pants, clearly sends him head reeling, although actor Christensen deadpans the entire situation, only his eyes widening with the wonders he observes.

       In his bed, he now has images of Mads, and he soon becomes best friends with the cute boy of his own age. But eventually he does draw an image on Emma’s arm as well, while she vaguely describes a childhood transgression of her and a friend watching “13 Reasons ‘Why,’” an episodic film evidently which her parents might not have permitted. He kisses the girl, perhaps more out curiosity or an attempt to prove his heterosexuality than any attraction. They fall onto the bed, but Thomas quickly turns away, perceiving the girl is not what he really wants.

      Surely, she recognizes it is a lost cause when he asks, “Can’t we just lie her for a bit?”

     Meanwhile, however, word has gotten out that he’s “been with Emma,” presumably suggesting that he’s had sex with her, making him somewhat popular, at least with Boas. Conflicted as he is, Thomas says nothing to deny it, which gets him an automatic invitation to the party of Boas’ house when his parents are out of town.

    While having a reputation of having slept with Emma makes Thomas popular with the boys, however, Emma is described as being “slutty” by her girlfriends and finally confronts Thomas believing he was the one who spread the rumor. Soon after, Thomas quickly leaves the party.

      The several images that Green flashes of a train in motion convey not only Thomas’ own trip from the party to his home, but the sense of changes he is inwardly undergoing, the blur and confusion of his own emotions.

      Mads finds him sitting in the subway station drunk, and helps him home.

     The next day, Thomas visits Emma to apologize for not having said something to the others, for not having denied what was clearly a rumor. Apparently, she accepts the apology and together they visit Mikkel’s show. The film ends with Thomas staring at Mikkel, the older boy appearing to recognize the younger boy’s gaze of desire—but whether he can or will or even wishes to respond is unknowable. What is clear is that Thomas has to come realize where from now on intends to look for love.

      For some years now, Green has been making small, quiet movies (An Afternoon in 2014 and An Evening in 2016) which deal with young adolescents trying to come to terms with and, more importantly, verbalize the queer feelings they suddenly encounter, fearful of expressing their new emotions to their closest friends, let alone sharing them with their peers in which might end in abuse. October Boy is the best of these to date.

 

Los Angeles, November 20, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (November 2023).