Trishtan Perez | I Get So Sad Sometimes / 2021

revealing the face

by Douglas Messerli

 

Trishtan Perez (screenwriter and director) I Get So Sad Sometimes / 2021 [20 minutes]

 

Philippines director Tristhtan Perez’s 2021 short film involves a young high school boy (Louie Caminade) who is living a fantasty life on the internet with what appears to be a mature man whose face has not yet been revealed to him.

     Using the handle of “Littleone,” the central figure of this film refuses also to reveal his face while yet permitting himself to reveal his ass to which the older figure, Lonley_Prince68 masturbates.

    Meanwhile, the young boy meets up daily with his high school friends, without every seeming to interact with them, although “Littleone’s” friend Marco (Russ Ligtas) attempts to make contact. But the “hero” of this piece keeps his distance, playing out his life on the internet.

     Gradually as the relationship between Littleone and Lonley_Prince68, the elder insists that the young boy reveal his face. And evidently during one long night encounter, the facial meetup occurs, resulting in a great disaster, which we eventually perceive is a revelation that Littleone’s adult fantasy is, in fact, his friend Marco.

     Devastated by the fact, Marco locks himself away even from his mother, allowing, eventually, only Marco to enter his room. But even that doesn’t appear to resolve the situation until finally the two engage in sex, and the young “Littleone” begins to come to terms with the situation that he may soon be losing even his fantasy lover to college, Marco insisting that he can join him in the new world into which he is soon traveling.

      Whether or not “Littleone” can assimilate the new demand is not answered. If nothing else, he is still frightened by realizing that his fantasy was, in fact, a person quite close to him, that the imaginary world outside his closed off world, was truly near him for all of his youth—a lesson may of us learn only decades later.

      Even his mother, confused by the situation, encourages him to return to Marco, and in that encounter begin to realize that he is not so “little” and isolated as he as for years perceived himself to be.

 

Los Angeles, January 20, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (January 2024).