Jorge Torregrosa | Deseo (Desire) / 1999

his and her sailors

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jorge Torregrosa (screenwriter, based on a story by E. M. Forster, and director) Deseo (Desire) / 1999

 

A clearly disconsolate couple, Harry (William Short) and Julia (Anne Carney) have traveled all the way from Manhattan (“the city”) to visit Prospect Park in Brooklyn, seeking out most particularly the Obelisk.* Their site-seeing trip, in fact, seems more like an obligation than a joyful holiday.

     We do almost immediately detect, however, a slightly sweeter temperament in Julia, but she is so controlled by her gruff husband that seems equally impolite, even to two sailors, celebrating their 1-day shore leave in the manner of On the Town, seemingly actually intending to see the famed “Cleopatra’s Needle.”

      The first sailor (Daniel Kruse) asks the couple if they know the whereabouts of the Obelisk, to which Julia responds that they themselves are also tourists, but since Harry has a map perhaps they might join them. Both immediately take the opportunity and tag along. But it’s quickly apparent that the first sailor has other intentions, engaging Julia in conversation as the two eventually share a cigarette and get separated from her husband the second sailor (Bryan Close) who has continued on with Harry.       While the first sailor begins to sweet-talk Julia, commenting on her beauty, etc., the second sailor attempts to make some communication, without much success, with Harry. But finally, he is able to engage him by asking him if the two generally bring along their children on such outings. Harry admits that they don’t have children, barking out that he’s not sure he’d even like them, but eventually admitting that Julia might have liked children. The second sailor seems to break through Harry’s reserve somewhat by agreeing with Harry, “A father’s got to want his kids or else there’s no point.” They soon find other things upon which they agree.

     Meanwhile, the first sailor’s seduction of Julia continues, as he removes his blouse and convinces her that they will later “catch up.”

       By the end of the day, clearly after sex in the park, Julia and her sailor rejoin Harry and his sailor at the bus stop where they find them waiting. Harry wants to know where she was? He and the sailor had waited, he explains, at the Obelisk but they never showed up. Was she and the sailor perhaps visiting the Japanese Garden?

      Her sailor, who intercedes upon her behalf insists they waited at the Obelisk for a long while but couldn’t find Harry or his sailor friend. The second sailor, with a slight smile on his face, queries “You showed the Obelisk to the lady?” the pun being quite obvious to all involved—except perhaps for Julia.

 

     But the sailors have to be going, they’re wanted back on board, and say a sweet goodbye to our originally unhappy couple.

 

     Harry and Julia await the bus, but Julia wants to quickly stop in at the nearby gift shop. She purchase a postcard of the Obelisk, the shop girl replying that it’s too bad they moved it temporarily to an exhibition. Slowly it dawns on Julia that her husband, similar to her, has not visited the Obelisk with his sailor friend as he insisted he had, that he perhaps found a similar way of passing the day as she had.

     On the bus home, postcard in hand, she starts to say something, but pauses, realizing that any statement of recognition of the missing stature would only incriminate her as well. Or perhaps if he actually did attempt to visit the Obelisk, he already knows the truth about which neither is ready to speak. Both she and her husband have obviously found some sort of release apart from each other, and perhaps will have to face those needs or “desires” in the future as well.

      This is the kind of charming satire that characterized so much of gay filmmaking in the last decades of the 20th century, although IMDb insists on declaring this 1999-made film as a product of 2000, the year of its Netherlands debut. Other sources claim it for 1999, a decision with which I concur.

      Born in Spain, the director of Desire Jorge Torregrosa lived in New York City for 10 years, during that time attending the Tisch School of Film at New York University and making 4 short films, Family Pictures (1998), Salo Me Pa Mela Me (1998), Desire (1999), and Women in a Train (2001). Upon his return to Spain he made several further short films, worked in music videos for artists Antonio Orozco and Najwa Mimri, and filmed commercial advertisements. In 2012 he debuted his first feature film Fin.

 

*In fact, the Obelisk, a gift from the Khedive of Egypt, Isma'il Pasha was shipped to the US in 1880 via the SS Dessoug and erected in Central Park in Manhattan behind The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was never located in Brooklyn. But the sculpture’s location was kept secret by those involved, including Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, William henry Hulbert, and Frederic Edwin Church, according to Gorringe, “In order to avoid needless discussion of the subject.” It was decided “to maintain the strictest secrecy as to the location determined on,” placing it behind a knoll on which it was firmly anchored into bedrock.

     For years its famed hieroglyphs remained clear, but by the late 20th century, acid rain and begun to pit the sculpture and the hieroglyphs were endangered. In 2010, Dr. Zahi Hawass sent an open letter to the president of the Central Park Conservancy and the Mayor of New York City insisting on improved conservation efforts. If they were not able to properly care for the obelisk, he threatened to "take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin"

 

Los Angeles, April 20, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).