Abram Cerda | Et tu cherches quoi de beau ici? (I Should Feed My Cat) / 2022

what are you looking for here?

by Douglas Messerli

 

Abram Cerda, Andres Cifuentes, Marcela González, Daniela Herrera, Priscila Alegria Nunez, and Priscila Núñez (screenplay), Abram Cerda (director) Et tu cherches quoi de beau ici? (I Should Feed My Cat) / 2022 [17 minutes]

 

Stefan (Andres Cifuentes), a Mexican man* now living in rainy Brussels, is most definitely not happy, as he scrolls through his cellphone pictures of a man, married with a baby, who we might guess was once his lover or, perhaps, is his brother.

 

     On Grindr he’s faced with questions such as “What are you looking for here?” and “Do you want to drain my balls?” Nonetheless, he hooks up with one of the men to whom he’s been texting. Their relationship, however, seems more like a doctor’s appointment than a sexual encounter, after a few general questions, Stefan asking to see the man’s ass. His appointment, Loic (Emmanuel Amar) has already been waiting for him in his jockstrap.

      But almost immediately Loic receives a phone call and begins texting in response. Stefan stands up, goes over to him, and takes out his cock to regain his attention. Loic sucks him but the Chilean can’t ejaculate and the situation ends in frustration, the other man attempting to calm his stress. Stefan, however, refuses to stay insisting that he should feed his cat, although we’ve seen no evidence of such a pet in his apartment. Although eventually he is convinced to stay, there is certainly not much intimacy. And we observe no sexuality, only a shot on the bed where Loic has fallen to sleep, with Stefan gently stoking the older man’s head.

 

       As Stefan leaves the man’s apartment, he blocks the user on his cellphone.

     Later that evening, Stefan runs into an old friend, Fabián (Rubén Cabrera), who clearly he hasn’t seen in a long while, since he announces he’s now finished his Master’s degree and is working on numerous projects. Evidently, he’s an architect, unlike Stefan, a man ready to conquer life.

     He friend also invites him for a drink, but once more Stefan argues that he needs to feed his cat, a sign that any true commitment is almost impossible for him to make. He takes a selfie with his friend to send to his mother, who obviously also knew him when these men were younger.

     We can only wonder what has happened to Stefan that has made him no passive and non-committal to life? The only clues we have are those early snapshots of his cellphone. Were they pictures of his lover or his brother, about whom he admitted to Loic that he took drugs (“chems”).

      Yet in the very last scene we see Stefan chopping up masses of potatoes. He calls Fabián to ask him if he might like to come over for dinner since he’s made way too much, and his friend immediately agrees. And we finally get a glimpse of his cat, clinging to his shoulder. “Yes, kitty, it’s ok. Yes my love.” Perhaps things have finally changed for the morose Stefan, as he seems to recall better days, as the credits roll, of the past when he and another man, perhaps Fabián, where mocking exaggerated queer posing positions. 

     Unfortunately, US born director Abram Cerda (working on this film in Belgium) has not given us much to construct an explanatory narrative, nor even provided a reason why we might wish to given the general dourness of his central figure. I have to agree with the Letterboxd critic “CinemaSerf,” who argues “There’s not really much substance to this story for the viewer. Perhaps it was a labour of love for one (or more) of the half dozen writers, but this all comes across as rather an empty story on the screen.”

     Perhaps the original French title better catches the cynicism of the unhappy central figure: “And what is it that you’re looking for here that’s so beautiful?”—echoing the early Grindr query: “What are you looking for here?” Often immigrants don’t find in their new worlds the joys, wealth, or simple pleasures they imagined they might.

 

*When queried by Loic, Stefan describes himself as Mexican, although in all the media material about this film it describes him as Chilean. Perhaps a publicist simply got it wrong, or, quite inexplicably, Stefan is simply lying or obfuscating about his birthplace.

 

Los Angeles, February 7, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2024).