repeat performance
by Douglas Messerli
Jacques Duron (screenwriter and director) Une
histoire sans importance (A History of No Importance) aka History
Without Importance / 1980
Evidently the two have had previous connections since the first words
from Claude’s mouth are “You could have stayed with me, really.” Philippe’s
answer, without any context provided, is vague: “I’m not going to be with you
all the time. Jean is cool. I did not want to let him down.” Philippe sitting
on the ground literally at Claude’s feet, pushes against his knee, calling him
“Little idiot.”
But we recognize in that interchange that something has already
transpired between the two that hints at a close friendship if not a closer
bond, particularly later that afternoon as we watch Philippe, making his way to
the local train which takes these boys and others back and forth day from and
back to their homes, watching Claude carefully through the train window as the
elder converses girl who clearly helps him with his math. Claude moves closer
to the window to allow Philippe the opportunity to sit next to him, but
Philippe choses instead to sit in the next row with his back to the clearly
disappointed boy.
A
short while later, while Claude either appears to have fallen to sleep or is
merely pretending, Philippe turns back to look at his friend’s face, turning
away again with an open smile.
If
this attention to the placement, glances, and reactions of the two boys in
regard of one another may seem a bit disproportionate, I must protest that
throughout much of this richly textured black-and-white film this is almost all
Duron shows us. The work is presented literally in fragments of encounters as
they move in and out one another’s lives in a way that we might expect from a
serious adult “romance” in the manner of directors such as Bresson, Antonioni,
Chabrol, or Losey in whose works figures framed by distinctive landscapes tell
us almost everything through their bodies—through the movement of hands, eyes,
feet, knees, heads, and finally lips. And it is this fact that ultimately
transforms this work of cinema from a portrait of two attracted adolescents
into a far more serious exploration of deep passion, something we simply do not
expect in movies about young boys or girls coming to terms with their
sexuality.
From Phillipe’s early fear that Claude “doesn’t really give a shit about
me,” his belief that they “have nothing in common,” their friendship quite
quickly develops into a kind of mentorship-like relationship between him and
the younger Claude. By the second day, it is Philippe who has saved a seat for
the other on the train, Claude resting his head against Philippe’s shoulder as
their voyage continues into the inky darkness of night.
It is the same game many young males play, talking about sex, wanting
sex without truly being able to ask for it. They tussle for a few moments,
Claude on top of Philippe, as they gently rub noses before being interrupted by
the elder boy’s father checking in on them, suggesting it is time for Claude to
return home.
So
far, Claude’s interest in sexuality seems to be more one of curiosity, almost a
game, and perhaps, even a demonstration of appreciation that Philippe has
allowed him entry into an a slightly more mature world than it is an actual
desire for sexual involvement. We already know that for Philippe is far more
serious, and for that very reason he is far more hesitant.
Yet
the next night in Philippe’s home they play with each other’s hands behind his
mother and father’s back. Without blankets they must share Philippe’s bed, the
elder gently stroking Claude’s back, and greeted finally with his hand to
signify his willingness, the two consummate their love with sex.
From almost the beginning of this narrative, however, we might have
predicted the result. As Claude bicycle’s away to his home, his journey will
take him in a different direction from the one Philippe has just explored and
treasured, the last glimmers of the Debussy song fading away. By the next scene
Claude is already feeling changes taking place inside him, hiding himself away,
as Philippe puts it, “like a glass bell. I can see you but I can’t reach you.”
After some attempts to repair the growing distance between them, it
becomes apparent that Claude is now not only attracted to women but prefers
them to Philippe’s company. And it is not long before he finds a serious
girlfriend (Jeanne Barthélémy), leaving Philippe behind as a seeming
insignificant part of his history, “a history,” as Philippe describes it
“without importance.”
What we have not been prepared for is the despair that Philippe feels
for their parting. In the now long tradition of such works, we observe young
men and women temporarily suffering the end of first love, because of their
youth, however, quickly coming to terms with it, managing to realize that they
have long lives before them in which to find someone else. Usually, in fact,
the young lover’s loss of love is embedded with his or her own sense of being
an outsider, and when she or he comes to terms with that issue new
possibilities rise up to replace the former object of desire. The later models
of this genre such as Simon Shore’s Get Real (1998) and David Moreton’s Edge
of Seventeen of that same year both solve their youth’s loss of a love with
their awakening to the new world they now face. Even in the earlier early version
of the “coming of age” film, Lasse Nielsen and Ernst Johanssen’s You Are Not
Alone (1978) left its somewhat younger hero Kim with the perception that,
at least politically speaking, he is part of a much larger community made up of
both homosexual and heterosexual men and women who gather to protect one
another.
Duron’s young Philippe, however, plays it with all the dramatic
intensity of a spurned heroine in an adult film, not only growing obsessed with
his Claude, unable to eat or sleep, having imaginary conversations with him,
and describing the former 14- or 15-year-old boy as an “asshole,” “egoist,” and
“whore,” but stalking him, hiding in the shadows as Claude passes by with his
girl, and telephoning him only to quickly hang up. Philippe’s mother fears for
his well-being, as does his audience.
But Duron quite astonishingly takes it even further, foretelling what
might be described as a “coming of age revenge tale” that we witness in Pedro
Almodóvar’s 2004 absurdist comedy Bad Education. To remind my readers,
in that film two very young boys, Ignacio and Enrique fall in love only to be
discovered and broken up, Enrique being expelled from school by their priest.
Later, when Ignacio—now the transvestite hooker, Zahara—accidentally discovers
that her current customer is her long ago beloved Enrique, she determines to
and succeeds in seeking revenge on the ancient priest.*
This 44-minute film, mostly because of its beauty and remarkable originality, but also because of the difficulty aficionados had for many years in finding a copy to view (it is now available on both YouTube and Vimeo), has become almost a legendary work. Since it is now available, let us hope this audacious movie is never again forgotten.
*One might argue that another example of this
genre, although played out in reverse, the distraught lover killed by one who
originally spurned him, is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s In einen Jahr mit 13
Monden (In a Year with 13 Moons) (1978).
Los Angeles, January 20, 2021
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog and
World Cinema Review (January 2021).
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