Angelo Raaijmakers | I, Adonis / 2021

reforming a body

by Douglas Messerli

 

Angelo Raaijmakers (screenwriter and director) I, Adonis / 2021 [14 minutes]

 

Dutch director Angelo Raaijmakers short film I, Adonis is a gruesome little horror tale of a gorgeous young boy and a handsome young man, both trying to hide from the beauty of their body.

 

     As an adult Nicky (Hein van Rooij), a trim young man, who having worked out regularly, has a fairly decent pectoral development. But Nicky is clearly dissatisfied with the results, working out constantly, eating precise amounts of fatless chicken and egg whites. He works out in gym filled with monstrous overly-developed older men who skin has turned brown and is covered with tattoos, the best looking of them being Carlos (Dennis van Beusekom). None of these men might be described as even slightly attractive.

      But then Raaijmakers film is not about gay men, to whom the young Nicky might seem most appealing, evidence of which we get a hint when one of his trainers appears to be looking in at him as he dresses through a curtain. This young “Adonis” would rather be the monsters who surround him, with muscle mass and pectoral development that his frame could never possibly support.

      In the period in which we observe his workouts, in fact, he gains weight, loses muscle mass and is put on a new three-week regimen by his trainer (Bart Harder).

 

     We soon discover the reason of his strange obsession, albeit a rather hokey one. As a lovely long blonde-haired child his mother, obviously having desired a girl instead of a boy, clothes him each day in dresses, for which he is understandably mocked by his classmates. We realize, accordingly, that the issue that haunts him is one gender, not sexual desire. Having mistaken muscles as representing the ideal male anatomy, our young fitness freak is determined to find himself a body that will represent everything that his mother had attempted to deny him.

      Despite his normative good looks, Nicky, however, is totally unhappy, carefully slicing up his breast of chicken and picking out any yellow yolk that might have fallen into his egg whites, but which apparently cannot feed his hunger.

  

    In total frustration finally, he returns home from the gym where he has imagined all the men having turned toward him to laugh, takes up the large cutting knife and puts it to his breast, slicing open a large wound into which he stuffs with the raw chicken, delusionally imagining that it will directly provide the upper muscle mass he is missing. Blood runs from the wound across the kitchen counter as we watch him, from the back, hunched over pushing the cut-up pieces into the deep recess one-by-one before the screen goes black.

 

Los Angeles, December 5, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2023).

Nickrose Layne and Rae Wiltshire | Eating Papaw on the Seasore / 2022

two men in the dark reciting their names

by Douglas Messerli

 

Nickrose Layne and Rae Wiltshire (screenwriters and directors) Eating Papaw on the Seashore / 2022 [18 minutes]

 

Perhaps the first ever Guyanese gay film, Eating Papaw on the Seashore is a cry in the wilderness, the only country in the Americas, outside of the Caribbean, where homosexual sex is still illegal.

As its directors observed when releasing the film:

 

“I made Eating Papaw on the Seashore to reflect queer boys as human beings who can fall in love and that's it is not something to laugh about. It is natural. In Guyana the idea of being gay is a joke. I do not laugh and wanted to reflect human beings onscreen. It was important to capture the humanity of a group of people who often do not feel accepted by society.”

 

     Reviewer Mike Kennedy quite effectively describes the situation today in Guyana:

 

“After the Belize Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the Belize sodomy ban was unconstitutional, that ruling should have been applied across all CARICOM States, including Guyana.  Instead, Guyana relied on a “savings clause” in its Constitution that protected from constitutional review any colonial-era laws inherited from the British Empire.  This means that a number of offences relating to homosexual sex remain on the statute books (and are enforced), including “buggery”, a felony that carries a life sentence.  And of course, in places with that kind of legal framework, homophobic violence and hate crimes flourish and often go unreported.”

 

      In this work, Asim (Rae Wiltshire) and Hasani (Isiah Lewis), two teenage boys, are from the first frames on, clearly in love. Swimming together in the ocean, Hasani is momentarily distressed when he cannot find Asim, who finally pops up near him, the two spending a long period staring at each other in clear and loving admiration of their bodies. Soon after, when Asim is preparing the dinner, his father Abdul (Mark Luke Edwards) having gone to market, Hasani shows up again, joking about his friend having been put to work like a girl, Asim responding with a joke that puts down his sexism, “And only girlies eat dinner.”

 

     Their sexual attraction again immediately becomes clear when Asim takes off his shirt, noting that it’s hot, assigning Hasani the job of making a mango curry. But Hasani loses is train of thought even in that act, beginning to remove his own shirt in obvious response to Asim’s semi-nakedness. A moment later, however, the boys hear Abdul returning, Asim quickly putting back on his shirt, while Hasani begins to re-button his. As Kennedy observes, they “are acutely aware of the homophobic world in which they live.”   

      Throughout, Asim’s father is referred to as “Uncle,” while Hasani’s mother is described as “Aunty,” but that does not necessarily mean the boys are cousins; it may be simply honorific title that exists in many cultures.

       In the next scene, the boys return to the water, the only world to which they might escape to with some sense of privacy. As Asim later says, “People can’t talk what they can’t see.” And now they do finally kiss.

       But even there, in the ocean, their actions can be observed as we see Abdul walking the beach, an open boat passing by. In such a small community, all eyes upon them. Later, on the seashore, as the title hints, they feed one another papaw (papaya) in the dark they come close to having sex.

       However, as they walk home, Hasani suggests they should take a break from one another, Asim asking why? Their responses are vague, Hasani asking “What do you want to turn into,” Asim responding, “We are turning into nothing,” suggesting that Hasani is afraid that their love is making them homosexual as opposed to realizing that it is because they are homosexual that they have fallen in love. But in such a restrictive culture, the idea of being born as a homosexual is almost inconceivable. Hasani’s final conclusion that “He’s not turning into nothing, I don’t know about you,” suggests that perhaps he is pulling away out of fear of Asim’s love more than recognizing his own feelings for him.          As the boys move apart, Abdul senses his son’s impatience, using the metaphor of fishing to suggest that with time his catch will come. But Asim does not appear to be convinced. Abdul realizes that since his son has stopped hanging out with Hasani he “is always sour.” But the only thing he suspects is that a woman has broken up their friendship, Asim walking away without answering.

      Hasani, lying on a hammock, is not much better off. Asim visits him with a basket of papaw, but Hasani claims that he is busy doing chores and stuff. Asim demands to know when he is going to have time, inquires when he might come and see him. But Hasani still feels that they have been spending too much time together. His deeply closeted self obviously feels that if he pulls away from Asim, his emotional confusion will simply desist. As Asim puts it, “You solution is to spend no time at all.”

      Asim asks him the most important question: “Is that what you want?” suggesting that his own emotions may be rubbing against their cultural demands. But Hasani can only answer, “It would just be easier.”

      When Asim drops off the papaw to his Aunty, Hasani’s mother, she too brings up the fact that he has been scare, that he has not come to see them; and Asim also can only claim the reason to be that he has been busy. But she sees the look they exchange when Hasani discovers his former friend in the kitchen, a look simultaneously of anger and deep desire. And she, like so many mothers across the globe, recognizes the problem. Asim tells his Aunty to tell Hasani that is father is sending him to Trinadad for work. Has Abdul also heard gossip or is he just instinctually acting to find a way to remove the problem of his son’s funk.

       Kennedy suggests it surely will be no better for him in Trinidad, whose laws for refugees also maintain the British Empire’s former sodomy laws, while pointing out, on the other hand, that, at least, in a larger city he might go somewhat under the radar?

       But Hasani has also fallen into a depression, his mother demanding he get up and help in her the kitchen. As she commands him to make lime juice, she asks him what he might want for his 18th birthday, but is stopped by his words: “Mommy.” Telling him to lift up his head, she demands that he need to go see Asim, assuring him that it’s all right, the recognition any young man trying to come to terms with his sexuality.

        Abdul sees Asim in the dark checking out the Papaw tree, announcing that he wants to pick one for Hasani. Abdul queries whether he might not be too late, but whether he means the hour or the time in their unrepaired relationship is not clear.

        Asim changes the subject, “Why are you sending me away?”

        Abdul argues they’ve talked about it already, Asim responding that yes it concerns his need to show himself responsible, but he adds, he has never been seen as irresponsible before.

        “It’s not what I mean,” answers Abdul, with Asim challenging him.

        But in answer, his father once again reverts to the former subject, suggesting that they are very much connected. “It’s too late to go back to Hasani anyway?” Again, we wonder does he mean to late in what has transpired or because of the hour.

        Asim is as cryptic in his response: “It never used to be too late before.”

        Finally, Abdul admits his fears. “People are talking, Asim.”

        And Asim answers him with the line I have already quoted, “People can’t talk what they can’t see.”

        Again Hasani and Asim sit on the late-night beach, putting pieces of papaw into each other’s mouths. Again they kiss. But this time Hasani asks if Asim will make love to him.

        Hasani admits that his mother was afraid to send him out into the night in case somebody might do something to him. The horror of Asim’s answer seems also to be a kind of consolation: “That’s normal.”

        Asim wishes his friend happy birthday, to which Hasani asks “What’s going to happen when you leave?”

        His reply is the only one possible: “I don’t know Hasani. I don’t know.”

      Hasani has finally worked it out: “We are not Antimen. We are Asim and Hasani,” which is a lot like saying, “We’re not fags, we’re just ourselves.”

     When such movies as this one and Bisi Alimi’s The Only Gay in Nigeria are released, it helps people to realize that even deluded governments which maintain they have no gay men or women in their country are not only obfuscating but refusing to accept reality with their inabilities to recognize the truth that queer folk exist in every culture and country on earth, that LGBTQ+ individuals are natural to the human race, and that being gay is something you can ever irradicate. The only choice, finally, is come to accept it and eventually embrace those who are different the from majority. In the meantime, couples of the same sex continue to meet up and to embrace in the night even while they fear the consequences of their simple expression of love.

 

Los Angeles, December 5, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (December 2023).

Jacques Demy | La Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels) / 1963, USA 1964

a man seduced

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jacques Demy (screenwriter and director) La Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels) / 1963, USA 1964

 

As Time Out critic Tom Milne has observed about Jacques Demy’s 1962 film, La Baie des Anges (Bay of Angels), if the work seems ostensibly to be about gambling, its subject is actually seduction, with Jeanne Moreau not only seducing but ultimately using the character played by Claude Mann as a kind of lucky charm.

     That theme is made immediately clear from the first scene of the film, when the hard-working Jean Fournier (Mann), admitting his exhaustion, is offered a ride home with his colleague Caron (Paul Guers) in Caron’s new car. Fournier is surprised since he knows that Caron makes a salary near his own, and he can hardly make ends meet, let alone purchase a new car. 

      The invitation to ride, made as the two handsome men stand side by side at the office, already seems somewhat suspicious, with mild homoerotic undertones, but it leads to something overt when, after admitting that he is a regular gambler at a nearby casino, Caron insists that Fournier accompany him to the casino on his next visit, suggesting that he is sure his friend will “bring him luck.” 

      Fournier, an obedient worker and good son all his life, demurs, but nonetheless shows up for the trip. Demy and his brilliant cameraman, Jean Rabier, linger over the details of how one gets entry to the casino. One first must join by paying a small fee and then purchase a number of chips or plaques before entry—a pattern very similar, in fact, in some of the raunchiest gay clubs, particularly those with open sex and porn of the 1970s and 1980s, where one had to join the “club” and buy a certain quantity of quarters before proceeding in to “sin.”

      Of course, the large white marble casinos outside Paris and later in the south of France, are anything but raunchy, decorated lavishly like vast fin de siècle hothouses. But, in fact, Fournier is being seduced by Caron, if not literally in the sexual sense—although that is very subtly suggested—at least being seduced into the joys (later described as being better than a sexual rush) of gambling. And, amazingly, the beautiful and innocent Fournier is “lucky” with Caron, as both men win more money than they might have received with weeks of pay in their jobs. Caron follows that episode up by demanding that Fournier join him a week later in Nice and Monte Carlo. 

       I do not want to make too much out of these early episodes. There is no overt homosexuality in these scenes; and even if was implied, it may be that Demy, rumored to have been a highly closeted man in those days (while shooting this film he married director Agnès Varda; he died of AIDS in 1990, as did his then male sexual partner), did not even realize that he had already acted out the second part of the film in these first scenes. Nonetheless, Fournier, symbolically, loses his virginity in these scenes, and what he has already experienced determines that he will not follow family tradition by visiting his uncle during vacation, but, as we might describe it, “go wild,” his strict clock-fixing father even throwing him out of the house for his insubordination.

      The two men have already observed the Moreau character, Jacqueline "Jackie" Demaistre in that first casino as she is being roughly escorted out the door and told never to return for her behavior after losing. And we can already perceive that Fournier—who, after all, is heterosexual— is intrigued by the beautiful blonde dressed in a white Pierre Cardin suit.

      In Nice, after checking into an inexpensive hotel, Fournier is once again asked to pay ahead for his “sinning,” this time by the desk clerk who, when she hears he’s on the way to the casino, demands he pay up ahead so that if he loses he will not attempt to sneak out. Again, he must join the casino before buying chits.

     There he discovers the “addicted” Jackie, and, standing beside her, insistently bets on the roulette wheel on number 3, upon which, hearing his assured tone, Jackie also places her last plaque. We discover that, had she lost, she would have forced to sleep in train station and would not have had enough money to return to Paris. But, of course, she wins, the two now working together to stack up a large amount of winnings.

      Their joyous and luminous walk along the beach and later dinner, brings them together through a long conversation in which Jackie reveals she has abandoned her husband, son, and wealthy lifestyle to take such chances, the excitement being worth everything she has given up. If she seems completely assured in her compulsion, we soon discover that her comments often represent a brave front which hide her real fears and loneliness.

       The two meet again the next day, where she once more loses everything she has won, he left with only a small amount of money. By now we recognize that the spin of the roulette wheel and ups and downs of winning and losing are very much like love and sex. So we are not at all surprised when Fournier invites Jackie to stay the night in his room where the couple ends up in his bed.

       Being still a man of some rationality, Fournier has saved a little money for his return home, but soon discovers that Jackie, having stolen some of it, has returned to the casino. By the time he reaches her, she has lost nearly all of it again. When she allows a wealthy gambler to ask her out for a drink, offering her, in turn, a few free plaques, Fournier—now consumed with jealousy—dares to bet his last plaques, which regains her attention as she joins him in his selected numbers. Their luck returns, and this time they win millions.       

       Jackie now insists they move on to the far plusher Monte Carlo casino, where they will need different attire, a stylish dress for her and a tuxedo for him. She forces him to buy a car, while she pays for the most expensive hotel in Monte Carlo. For one brief evening they live a high life which Fournier has not only never experienced, but has never even imagined except in American novels and movies, hinting at such works as Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief. Yet their relationship remains rocky, simply because of her reckless behavior. And, although she declares that she doesn’t care at all about money, it is clear that her behavior has destroyed everyone previously in her life. And it is equally clear that she will end up by destroying him as well. 

      At Monte Carlo, the next day, the couple loses everything once again. As they leave the casino in dejection, Fournier runs into his old friend, Caron, who declares his has just won, reminding us of that first moment of male-on-male seduction. 

      Now without anything even to live on—Fournier has been forced even to sell the car—after attempting to reach Caron to ask for help, he finally must wire his father with apologies, asking for money to return home like a prodigal son. But almost before he can share the news with Jackie, she, having sold her watch is again off to gamble. 

     This time he demands that she come away with him, but she refuses, losing her last plaque. As she leaves the casino, Fournier stays on to punish her (and perhaps himself), now willing to even gamble away his father’s offering; but Jackie quickly returns to stop him, silently admitting that love is perhaps better than roulette—or, at least, is one and the same.

      As the two walk away in the glorious white of the Monte Carlo sunset, we do not for a moment truly believe that Jackie will be able to suddenly cure her deep addiction, or that Fournier will truly be able to hold her; surely the couple, with his small pay, will not be able even to afford a house in which to live a penurious life. And the level-headed Fournier, having tasted such lavish life-styles, will be unable to settle for the hard-laboring life of his father’s ilk. Accordingly, even with the joyful, closing music of Michel Legrand we cannot see this as a “happy ever after”-ending. Having been so utterly seduced by both man and woman, Fournier will surely end up like his father’s friend—formerly a wealthy industrialist, but now a night watchman—penniless and lonely, or, at the very least, will return to the everyday humdrum of office life with Caron.

      Yet, for the moment, it is hard to resist Demy’s beautifully-wrapped promise.

 

Los Angeles, August 27, 2016

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2016).

Frederick A. Thomson | Kitty and the Cowboys / 1911

cowboy pranks

by Douglas Messerli

 

No writer listed, Frederick A. Thomson (director) Kitty and the Cowboys / 1911

 

The actor John Bunny began his career as a stage actor, mostly in minstrel shows, but later in regular dramas; but when Vitagraph built their vast new Brooklyn studio, the most advanced in the US, Bunny appeared up announced for a job, and was hired on a temporary basis. He was almost immediately recognized as a remarkable talent, the studio heads, J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, signing him onto a contract, regularly increasing his salary.

     In the short period of Bunny’s film career, 1909-1915, the actor grew to be the first great comedian of the silent films, known world round for his gentle comedies in which he usually co-stared with Flora Finch, playing his wife. His films came to be called “Bunnyfinches,” and his own name often appeared in the title of the works in which he performed.

     His acting was physical, but not filled with pratfalls or excessive bodily movements that other studios presented or would be popular soon after—he was, after all, an extremely heavyset man. His comedy was truly silent; seldom did he even attempt to pretend to speak. Rather he relied on his face and hands to present a pantomime-like performance that many of his admirers learned from, including the young Archibald Leach, Cary Grant. Some credit him with bringing mime to screen performances.

     For those early years just before Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Leroy Arbuckle’s great successes, Bunny ruled the film screen, speaking often for the potentialities of film, even imagining that someday films would be a staple of American schools offering up history, literature, the arts, and even science in a manner that would interest the most bored of students.

      At the very top of his career, Bunny suddenly disappeared from the screen, going on a long stage tour with a huge cast. Unfortunately, the musical extravaganza was not a true success, and he was forced to put up vast sums of his own money to continue the performances. When he returned to film he had already grown ill with Bright’s disease and acted in only a handful of further films, leaving only a small of money, $6,000, to his wife upon his death.

      Although his vast numbers of admirers mourned the star’s death, within a few years he had been forgotten, and over decades most of the hundreds of films in which he acted were lost. It was not until this century that Bunny’s work gradually came to be reassessed and his remarkable talents recognized.

      Bunny apparently made several films in which he appeared in drag, four of which I discuss in this volume. In most of these Bunny appeared as a male in drag, dressing as a female to hide or, as in the film I discuss here, Kitty and the Cowboys, in order to seek revenge on his fellow trickster cowboy friends, representing a far different form of crossdressing than, say, some of Fatty Arbuckle’s or Wallace Beery’s “Sweedie” films where the actor simply acted as if he were a woman with no plot motivation or justification for his female attire.

      In Kitty and the Cowboys, Bunny plays Fatty, one of the good-natured cowhands on a ranch where the cook is an Indian (Eagle Eye) upon who the cowboys generally play mean and clearly racist jokes; but this group of handsome young men apparently are ready to make sport of anyone unlike them, and Fatty also is often the subject of their pranks. Generally, he takes it, like the cook, good naturedly, but secretly he is seeking a way to get back at them, and after one too many of their pranks he and his friend “Pink” (Robert Gaillard)—the name hinting at a direction in which the film doesn’t entirely take us—plot revenge on the others.

      Fatty writes up a letter from an imaginary “twin sister,” Kitty who is intent upon visiting her brother, accidentally allowing his cowboy friends to pull it out of his hands as he reads the mail. The sex-starved men are delighted at the possibility of a woman in their midst even for a few days, and immediately plot wishful adventures around her arrival. When it turns out that Fatty has to serve on jury duty the very day of his sister’s arrival, they’re absolutely delighted since they will now be able to meet her at the railroad station. But not trusting his friends, Fatty delegates Pink to meet her in his absence, Pink hooking up the old sorrel heading off to meet her at the station some distance from the ranch.

       Meanwhile, on his way into town, Pink meets up with Fatty at an abandoned shack where he delivers up a package of female attire and a wig which, when Fatty slips into them, both agree is “a thing of beauty and joy forever.” So heavy is Kitty, that Pink cannot even ride in the front seat with her, but must rein the old horse from the back of the cart.

 

      The men, nonetheless, are so unaccustomed to female society that, despite her heavy girth, they treat her like a true beauty. When she gets a taste of the current cook’s grub, Kitty is so disgusted that she promises them she will become their cook, further adding to their delight just to have a woman in their midst.

       I should add that whoever cast this Vitagraph cast of cowboys certainly had an eye for male beauty. The majority of these boys, unlike any of the other shorts of the period I’ve seen, are truly good looking, rendering their overwhelming attraction to Kitty/Bunny even more humorous than it might have been if they were simply a bunch of paunchy rubes.

 

      Kitty makes biscuits “just like mother used to make,” and before they’ve even bothered to wipe the butter from their lips the boys are each offering to marry her, lining up one by one outside the kitchen to deliver up their proposals. Each of them is invited in for an interview; but the minute they enter, Pink and Fatty hit them over the head, relieve them of their guns, hog-tie them, and throw them into the back room.

       Nonetheless, like young calves led to slaughter, they each awkwardly approach the female enchantress before receiving the surprise of their lives.

       Eventually their Indian ex-cook spots them all spread across the floor of the storeroom, lights a lantern to get a better look, and one by one, awakens and unties them.

       Seeking out the truth of what has happened, they too light lanterns and pay a visit to the sleeping Kitty and Pink. Seeing them gathered around him, Kitty pulls off her wig and undresses to reveal their old friend Fatty, having won this round of endless pranks.

       The only copy of the film remaining ends there, but evidently in the original the boys award Fatty a good dunking in the horse trough.

 

Los Angeles, January 17, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2022)