Blake Mawson | Pyotr495 / 2016

the difficulty of finding a gay date in moscow

by Douglas Messerli

 

Blake Mawson (screenwriter and director) Pyotr495 / 2016 [15 minutes]

 

This film in Russian takes place in present-day Moscow where 16-year-ol Pyotr (Alex Ozerov) gets a call on his cellphone and rides off on his motorcycle for an evening of pleasure with Sergei (Max Rositsan), a much older, beefy man, with a mohawk who lives in a strangely kitsch apartment filled with flowers and imitation Baroque-like furniture. That alone might have clued me to immediately head out the door.

  

     But this is Putin’s Russia and the two have agreed to be discrete. Indeed, the talk begins with tea and Sergei’s confession that he creates art as a hobby, Pyotr responding that his mother is a Sunday painter but he believes she might have made a living through it. When Sergei enquires “How about you? What do you like to do?” the boy answers it with a sexual catalogue of his desires that reveals no vision about discussing his own future: “I’m both active and passive. I like oral, sometimes kissing. You?”

      “A bit of everything,” responds Sergei as if there had been no shift in their conversation. “A little BDSM. Have you ever been tied up?” The boy shakes his head no, a slight glimmer of fear in his eyes. Sergei politely asks him to sit.

       When Pyotr continues to stand, he commands him to sit, slightly raising the boy’s head. “Do you know why you’re here?” Suddenly Pyotr and the viewer knows he is surely not there for sex.

      The answer is a devastating one to hear in any country, but particularly in Russia where ultra-nationalist groups are encouraged to abduct and attack young gay men and women through that country’s LGBT propaganda law. “Because you are a faggot. A pedophile. And you will one day harm our children.” Just as quickly he slugs the boy in the head, knocking him out.

     We now see the boy in a bathtub a woman who like a mixture of a whole and a drag queen Dominika (Juliana Semenova) slinks up to him, as Sergei holds up Pyotr’s head: “Let’s party,” she bends down to speak into his face. “Smile, faggot, You’re on camera.” Behind her, indeed, is a man with a hand-held camera.

        “Our little boy is a homo,” she continues, forcing a bottle of vodka into his mouth, most of it pouring out over his body. “He’s almost as filthy as an immigrant.” They shave his head down the middle, making him look like a clown. Dominika paints the boy blue.

 

        “And now,” she declares, “it’s time for your urine therapy, as she herself grabs up the camera as the former cinematographer grabs a bottle of urine and pours in over the Pyotr’s face. When the boy begs them to stop, Dominika warms him to keep quiet or her boys will get angry.

         Unexpectedly, this horrific film of Russian anti-LGBT terror becomes another kind of horror movie as the young Pyotr turns into a Russian version of The Hulk, doing away with the ugly camera man, and quickly spouting LGBT truisms to his punishers: “Why would we need your children when there are so many vile creatures like you in this world? Why have a heart if you’re not going to use it?” Obviously, that gives him the license to punch a hole in Sergei’s chest to pull out his heart, bloody entrails pouring out on the floor.

        The monster turns to the screaming Dominika, “Or face for that matter….” She immediately turns sprints for the front door only to find it locked. The monster, speaking through an echoing microphone recording, suggests that there is no proper cleaning method for getting rid of what ails him.

        “Honestly, we only wanted to help you,” she pleads, a moment later hurling a bottle of champagne at him. “You cursed devil, you are NOTHING!” she shouts. He tosses the hot tea, which apparently in all this time has not yet cooled, into her face. But just as immediately he disappears, and we know that Dominika must now truly face her punishment. And at that very moment, he drives the long end of a nationalist flag pole through her body, laughing a bit like DC Comic’s The Joker. As she screams herself to death, the now calmed monster hears a knock on the door.

      He opens it only to find another frail gay boy like himself there, probably also invited for an evening of fun the Sergei. The last scene of the film shows Pyotr riding home on his bike, the frail gay boy holding on behind him. Pyotr has finally found his proper date for the night.

       This film, made in Canada and Germany by Canadian actor and director Blake Mawson, was made in 2016, and even at that date refers to Putin’s early attacks on Ukraine. Today, with new anti-gay laws just passed, it would be even more terrifying to be an LGBTQ+ individual in Russia. Although I found this film almost reprehensible for its easy solutions to insolvable problems regarding the gay world in the former Soviet Union, one might well understand why Russian LGBT beings might seek out such a miracle to save them given how extremely limited their own choices for reparative action are. Alas, DC and Marvel comic book characters can provide nothing but an engaging fantasy.

 

Los Angeles, December 14, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2023).