what does not being gay mean?
by Douglas Messerli
Morten Kirkskov and Carlos Augusto
de Oliveira (screenplay), Carlos Augusto de Oliveira
(director) Tre somre (Three Summers) / 2006 [28 minutes]
In Danish director Carlos Augusto de
Oliveira’s Tre somre (Three Summers) of 2006, a handsome,
middle-aged man Jørgen, evidently a kind of tax consultant, and his wife spend
most of the year abroad, returning home only in the summer when they annually
invite their next-door neighbors, Thomas (Simon Munk), his wife Birgittte
(Stine Schrøder Jensen), and their 14 year-old son Peter (Carsten Bjørnlund)
over for dinner.
It’s a strange affair, the two men and their wives obviously not happy
with one another, and the brooding Peter hardly speaking, but when he does
probing into territory where none of the adults want to go. Peter brings up a
political comment, which they all refuse to deal with, and sex is something
they all insist is off the table. But even when Jørgen brings up the subject of
love, he gets no response. The silences punctuate their pretense of chatter.
When it’s time to leave, Peter begs to stay on a little longer to walk
Jørgen’s dog, and is given permission.
The walk seems to include Jørgen, who seems to be the only one who has taken an interest in the somewhat precocious boy, and when they stop and sit a few moments on a park bench, the elder man asks the boy why is so seemingly angry or resentful.
Peter admits to a secret, which he refuses to reveal. But Jørgen states
that the boy can trust him. Peter asks the same question of his older friend,
why is he so “sad and pissed,” and makes an agreement: if he tells his secret,
Jørgen must also reveal his.
Without much pause, the good looking boy admits that he’s gay. With
further probing from the elder, he reveals that he has never yet sex with a
boy, but he completely disinterested in girls.
Jørgen
finally admits his secret: he hates his wife, declares her stupid, and is
despondent about his relationship.
They two promise to keep each other’s
revelations to themselves, and their first summer, described by the intertitles
as “Last Summer” is over.
“This summer” witnesses a similar
gathering, but by this time Jørgen has divorced his wife and taken up drinking
heavily. It’s also clear that Peter’s parents are not getting along very well.
But the meal Jørgen makes is excellent, and all agree that it’s a pity that
more friends couldn’t share the meal with them.
When it’s time to leave, Peter begs for
a stay over, to which Jørgen readily agrees, and which his parents permit as
long as he makes up his own bed.
Evidently, the two have been
corresponding, since Jørgen enquires whether he’s still with his boyfriend, who
has apparently left him. Peter asks about the woman the older man has been
seeing, a friendship which also has evidently ended, Jørgen describing it
difficult to find interesting women without bothering to perceive how difficult
it must be for a 15-year-old to find gay boys in his high school in what
apparently is a small city.
Peter, like so many youths, dares to go where no adult would have imagined,
asking Jørgen to describe his most exciting sexual experience. Clearly, the
older man feels more comfortable talking with the boy than with his peers, as
he opens up about a threesome with two women, how, as they danced together,
slightly drunk, one behind removed his belt as the other begin to unzip his
pants.
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As he tells the story, Peter sitting on the couch close to Jørgen, Peter
slowly repeats the actions, unbelting his friend and unzipping his crotch,
obviously feeling the man’s growing erection. The two kiss and in the next
frame Jørgen awakes in bed the next morning with the boy beside him. Unlike the
scenes with his wife in the first section, when he cannot wait to get out of
bed, he lies for a while looking over at the youthful beauty. Obviously both
have enjoyed the sex the others could not even talk about.
The third and final section of his
somewhat daring short film—certainly a work that could not have been made
easily in the US—is titled “Next Summer,” so we are not sure whether we are now
simply moving ahead in time or witnessing the “next” summer’s possible
narrative.
This time we witness Jørgen with
another young women, Nana (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) with whom he is obviously
in love, underlined with kisses and hugs between the two lovers. Peter’s
parents show up as does another couple their age. For the first time we see a
serious dinner of adults. Peter has evidently not been invited, but eventually
appears nonetheless, Jørgen, upon seeing him, immediately rising to return to
the kitchen so cut up some vegetables for the dinner.
Peter finds him, and both, in their own
ways, seems to ask why they are there, Peter at the event, Jørgen hiding in the kitchen. Peter challenges him why
he wasn’t invited, a question which Jørgen telling him he did, “I invited your
parents as usual.”
But Peter responds by asking him, “You
know that they got divorced.” Clearly the parental situation is not as before,
and his invitation is not any longer assured.
Jørgen is clearly afraid of Peter
revealing their summer fling, the boy taunting him about it “Are you afraid
they’ll find out that we fucked?”—the discomfort of even the mention showing on
the older man’s face.
We warns Peter that he truly loves Nana,
and hopes for his silence.
Near the end of a meal in which it is
clear that Jørgen is clear nervous, Peter taps
the side of his wine glass and proposes a speech, terror expressed in Jørgen’s
look. But the boy speaks shortly and effectively, thanking his friend for being
a man who can keep his secrets and toasting to the new couple.
The party over, Nana goes into bed, with Jørgen remaining on the
terrace, drink in hand, somewhat broodingly. He hears footsteps, and observes
Peter who surprising has not yet left. “I’m going for a walk. You want to join
me?”
“Listen Thomas, why are you coming here? I’ve finally found someone I
can love. And when you came here with your gay...thing.”
Peter’s response is understandably a bit peeved, asking why they had sex
then? He can only answer that he wasn’t “himself,” but Peter’s response is a
bit startling, “So it wasn’t you then when you said, “fuck me?”
It would be one thing perhaps for a
homosexual to be attracted to a boy, but actually engage in anal sex as the
“bottom” certainly might say something very different. Obviously, Peter was not
just enticing him into gay sex, but seducing him completely.
And Jørgen’s response, “I don’t have to
listen to this,” is those of all men attracted to boys and other men who cannot
admit it. He walks away to the woods, Peter following.
Peter demands that he speak the truth,
“You know what we did, don’t you?” the older admitting, “We fucked.”
“And you thought it was nice. I thought it was nice.”
Jørgen, however, will go no further, assuring Peter that he is a nice
boy...a nice man. But the event should never have happened.
Yet Peter does insist upon one final thing before he leaves, a kiss.
Jørgen kisses him briefly on the lips, and the boy walks apparently out of his
life.
This time when the man returns to the
terrace he goes up quick to his bedroom where Nana is half-asleep, kissing her
and telling her he loves her. But we suspect that his words and acts are as
much to convince himself as to express his love to his sleepy companion.
It is almost as if Peter might have
imagined this scenario. Yet he knows, surely, that he probably still holds a
control over Jørgen that may challenge the man’s relationship with any future
woman, lover or wife; or perhaps it might merely be a later expression of the
most unusual sexual experience of his life, certainly far more exciting than
the two women he once bedded.
Again neighbors, and even their sons,
can be dangerous people.
Los Angeles, March 19, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema
Review (March 2022).
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