Marin Håskjold | I kveld er det lov å være mann (Lady of the Night) / 2017

lady in red

by Douglas Messerli

 

Marin Håskjold (screenwriter and director) I kveld er det lov å være mann (Lady of the Night) / 2017 [13.45 minutes]

 

In this quite profound Norwegian short, directed by Marin Håskjold, something strange happens to the men, close friends, who evidently regularly celebrate a men’s night, this one evidently for Christmas.

     Quite daringly and certainly with a bravery most of us have never imagined, Martin (Jonas Strand Gravli) determines to join his colleagues as a woman, dressed in a red short knit dress, a wig in place, soon replaced by how own short cut blond hair, a "do" which any smart young woman might feel comfortable wearing.

     We don’t quite know what Martin is telling the others. Is it simply an audacious joke? He is admitting that he is actually coming out as a transgender woman? Might he be suggesting that he is actually gay? The mystery is part of the evening, and indeed his appearance as a woman makes this “men’s night out” a memorable occasion.

     The men become entirely different beings, the discussion turning to topics they might never before have engaged it. Would you rather be on an island of lesbians or gay men, being one of the questions that surely never before entered their minds. The man who throws out the question, argues that he’d rather be on an island of gay men. Afterall a butthole is just butthole and women are so difficult, his answer representing both his incomprehension of what a gay man is and at the same time a misogynistic put-down of women.

     Others laugh and are charmed by Martin’s appearance, who quite credible come across as a woman, despite his rejection of their flirtations, some of which are obviously simply a tease, but others of which become far more serious. One friend, in particular, Sigurd (Sverre Kvamme) can literally not keep is his hands off of his former male friend, now the lady in red. Throughout the party, as everyone become drunker, he stands behind Martin massaging his neck, nestling his mouth on his friend’s shoulder, and demanding a lapdance.

     Martin grows more and more angry as his colleague gets increasingly intimate with him. And, given that face, we wonder what were his reasons, accordingly, for appearing as a woman at this event. Is it a test case? A mockery of their typically heteronormative behavior? Or might it be truly an expression of a desire about which both men, Martin and Sigurd, have long kept their silence.

     In the meanwhile, Martin grows violent, challenges his friends to a hand-wrestling match (which he loses), and generally does everything in his power to demonstrate that he is most definitely not a lady.

     But eventually, Martin does provide Sigurd with a lapdance, attempting to actually kiss him, which Sigurd is finally unable to accep—that is until, after Martin dances quite happily with the female bartender, he does somewhat accept a short kiss, although pushing Martin away when he tells him he is “fond of him.” There are limits to this game.

 

     This complex work shows us just how thin the veneer is between the genders. Put on a dress and a pair of heels and suddenly everything in the stereotypical male society breaks down. Former friends become immediately confused, question their own sexuality, and query their own sexual preferences. Director Marin Håskjold, despite giving us no previous history of his characters, quite convincingly portrays their reactions to the sudden deep shift in their sexual consciousness, in part by presenting it in fragments, each small section ending with brief blackout, almost as these men themselves must be confronting their increasingly drunken confrontation with a friend they obviously didn’t know as well as they previously thought they had. Perhaps, on this particular, they also realized that they didn’t know themselves as well as they had imagined. Certainly Martin’s relationship with his friends will never again be the same. And Sigurd’s relationship with Martin has radically changes—perhaps even his relationship with all the others.

 

Los Angeles, February 27, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2024).