Jody Wheeler | Hippopotamus / 2018

naked honesty

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jody Wheeler (screenwriter and director) Hippopotamus / 2018 [15 minutes]

 

Matthew (Mark Cirillo) has taken on a job, replacing an acquaintance, to be the caretaker of a nude resort, now closed for the season. But even as he begins his job he suddenly meets up with a man lying under a pile of towels. How did the motel cameras miss his presence, and what’s he doing there?

     And suddenly there are dozens of nude “queens” back in the pool area, all in need of being, as Matt tells his friend Tim (Casey Thibodaux), “Politely pressured” to get out so they can close up for the season. Finally, there is only one man left, Armacost (Jacob Bettts), soon to check out.

     Actually, Matt has been chosen for this position by Tim, about to go on vacation, for his love of solitude, the distance he keeps between himself and the customers, and, as his friend chides him, almost everyone else.

     In a late night nude swim with Tim before he is about to leave, Matt’s friend, seeing him staring at the stars, suggests that if he stares too long they might begin to see him, Matt answering, “What if they don’t like what they see?” Tim kisses him, assuring him that he likes what he sees.

     Now alone, himself openly nude, he discovers something else is going on. A lamp flickers and suddenly explodes. But the cameras appear to be working again. And Matt determines that he needs to order some groceries, calling up for a delivery.

     Still nude, he lets in the grocery delivery boy, Nic (Demetris Hartman) who follows him with his bags into his room. Before Matt can even question why the boy has come in, the two are making love. But Nic has to work, suggesting he might return for a midnight swim.

     The man who first appeared under the towels, Armacost suddenly appears. Evidently he hasn’t left and being “really tired” intends to stay another night.

     Later that night, Matt is swimming when suddenly Nic appears in the pool with him, Matt confused about how he got it, having locked the gate. The two begin to kiss. But a moment later Armacost appears nude and enters a smaller pool where Nic quickly joins him, leaving Matt to himself. As Matt begins to leave the pool, Nic calls over that he can always come join them.

      When Armacost is asked by Matt “what he does,” he answers he that he travels, he meets people, he measures. “Most people do not measure up.”

      “Do I measure up?” Matt asks.

       Armacost quickly answers “No.” Matt quickly gets out of the pool, Nic asking why is he so alone?

       “Because I don’t like what I can’t see.”

       Armacost describes it as irony, but Matt insists he just wants honesty, naked honesty. He moves to leave. The two in the pool continue in their sex.

       But at the next moment, Matt gets a call from Nic, the delivery boy who’s outside. Might he let him in?

      All the camera units have suddenly shut down. The Nic in the pool suddenly screams, Matt jumping in to now find no one there. Terrified as all electrical systems appear to shut down, Matt hears an electronic-like voice reporting “I like what I see.”

    Director Jody Wheeler’s potential horror film is too confused to truly terrorize, and is not sure whether it wants to sermonize against all the electronic voyeurism that has been created to keep watch over the human nudists, themselves also probably voyeurs and exhibitionists; or whether it is arguing for a kind of natural honesty which its hero seems to display and which has left him seemingly without permanent human contact. Is it nature itself that, finally, is closing down the human observational systems, some large and ancient outside force like the hippopotami who the first adventurers to Africa discovered? Or has human bodily judgment and sexual greed represented by the mysterious Armacost now come to control this private den of inequity over which Matt has been hired to watch? In either event, the metaphors are far too heavy for the lean little story Wheeler has created.

     The short film is interesting, however, since it is one of the first non-pornographic works in which almost all of its actors remain nude throughout.

 

Los Angeles, February 3, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2024).