Christopher R. Peterson | Only Once / 2005

once is enough

by Douglas Messerli

 

Christopher R. Peterson (screen writer and director) Only Once / 2005 [7 minutes]

 

Christopher Peterson’s 7-minute silent film Only Once might be best categorized as a kind of warning film in the manner of the Boys Beware series of 1955, 1961, and 1979, but with an ironic twist, this time warning the gay teen of the dangers of heterosexual involvement, even for “only one time.”

 

   The character portrayed by Brant Daugherty, a handsome and clearly popular college student is first seen coming out of a dorm room with Chris Pelletier (since the male characters are given no names, I’ll refer to them by the actor’s first names), a cute but clearly more openly gay student. The two have obviously just had sex, as Chris reaches out to hold Brant’s hand. Brant looks around, sees no one and takes hold of the other boy’s hand as they walk down the hall.

      Only a second or two later, however, they spot another boy making his way toward them, Kaiser Ahmed, and immediately Brant drops Chris’ hand at the very moment Chris attempts to lean into a goodbye kiss. Brant rushes off and waits around the corner as Chris gets mocked and pushed around by the clearly homophobic Kaiser, Brant suffering in pain, but also, one imagines, glad he wasn’t caught hanging out with Chris by Kaiser.

      Brant, in fact, is not quite ready to come out; and despite a phone call from Chris, which he ignores, he contacts a former girlfriend Serra (Emily Murphy) to come over for the evening.

      Brant has put out candles and wine for the event, and after only a few moments the two kiss. Soon after we see them in bed together, and in the next frames we observe them naked in bed after having sex.

     The days pass as represented rather rudimentarily by Brant putting an X in each frame of his bedside calendar. A few weeks go by, and it’s clear Brant is getting desperate to hook up with Chris again. He walks down the hall only to see Chris sitting outside his dorm room, reading a book. As Brant proceeds to move toward him, he receives a cellphone call. He answers it, as we observe a distraught Serra sitting on the toilet, having just taken a pregnancy test, discovering that she is pregnant.

      Brant is taken aback, quite literally as he has to suddenly walk away from his goal of reaching out to Chris once more, and turn back to his room to ponder out his future, obviously one with the terrifying possibility of having to marry Serra while living a life of being a closeted homosexual.

       The 16mm silent film was shot on a Bolex camera and edited by hand.

 

Los Angeles, December 29, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (December 2023).