Vitaliy Gavura | ЧАЧЬÓ (Chachó) / 2020

 

everything he wants but love

by Douglas Messerli

everything he wants but love

by Douglas Messerli

Vitaliy Gavura (screenwriter and director) ЧАЧЬÓ (Chachó) / 2020 [20 minutes]

 

Having grown up in a highly conservative Romani community in Ukraine, Yanush (Petro Rusanenko) cannot dare to embarrass his parents by not going through with the wedding ceremony the bride they have chosen for him, Zlata. They have brought him a new car, and her

family plan to provide them with housing. In a sense, these two have everything they might have wanted.

 

   The only problem is that Yanush is a gay man in love with Pasha. And at one point in the midst of the traditional ceremonies he sneaks away to meet up with Pasha, as they have previously planned to order to run off together. But Yanush can’t quite get up the nerve to go through with their plans, particularly since it will lead to great embarrassment and perhaps shunning for both his family and Zlata. Moreover, as he reminds Pasha, he now has it all. Can’t they just go sneaking off to make love as they have in the past?

      The answer, as least as Pasha is concerned, is absolutely not. 

 

    Ukrainian director Vitaliy Gavura’s film is a lovely mix of the traditional and new society fighting for the control of the bridegroom.

       The only problem is that the narrative keeps unspooling itself as different possible alternatives take place. In one such narrative, Yanush loses Pasha and returns to the wedding party before driving off. In another he and his new bride are locked away in a hotel room where women wait outside to prove, the next morning, that the virgin has now become a full woman, her blood to be displayed on a white bed sheet.

        In another version of reality, Zlata and Yanush escape, he taking her to the sea where he and Pasha had previously gone. Zlata, realizing the situation, describes him, as had Pasha previously, as a coward. In reaction Yanush violently rapes her before leaving her in complete distress.

  

    In a final version Yanush appears to have gotten up enough nerve as they go through the final actions of the wedding ceremony to actually his mother about his sexuality, the film ending before we can actually know whether he has gone through with his confession and come out.

       The problem becomes, accordingly, which of several many possibilities should we believe? Are these these realities being played out, including the rape, in Yanush’s own head? And if so, why should we truly care about such a coward?

       Yet, with the excellent actors Oleksandr Bondark, Kseniia Diachenko, Yehor Kuryschenko, and Alina Zievkova, we are moved to feel the deep moral pulls and social responsibilities put on the head of a young man in such a tradition-bound society. As we have observed in other films that have dealt these issues, particularly in the wonderful Georgian feature film of a year earlier, And Then We Danced, there seems no possible way for some gay men to escape.

 

Los Angeles, February 16, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2024).