Sal Bardo | Come Clean / 2023

wanting something which you find hard to accept

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sal Bardo (screenwriter and director) Come Clean / 2023 [12 minutes]

 

We’ve seen every other kind of gay individual in short films, why shouldn’t we get to better know our Obsessive-Compulsive gay neighbor, Kel (Ben Church) who washes and cleans his apartment and his body endlessly just before making final contact with his Grindr meet-up. If it sounds a little bit contradictory, the excessive cleanliness followed by random sex with someone one doesn’t really know very well, that may be part of direct Sal Bardo’s point. The sufferer knows he has issues, but how else he is going to relieve his sexual desires?

      Despite being a white boy with pink hair living in a spic-and-span doll house in which everything seems utterly perfect, our young boy, at least, is not bigoted, hooking up as he does with a black man Nate (James Hayden Rodriguez), a perfectly nice gay boy with whom, at first at least, Kel has no problems—except with his shoes, which he resolves with a quick plastic covering. 

     But as they begin to make love the “sudden panic” washes over him, forcing him to rush to the bathroom, fill his mouth with pills and attempt to find something that might quell his reaction. He returns to find the now rather impatient sex partner on the verge of leaving. But when he shouts out the words “panic,” Nate seems to know precisely what to do, calming Kel down with deep breaths and gentle assurances.

    When the panic finally wanes, Kel begins the kissing and before either of them know what’s happening, they’ve stripped off their clothes and Nate is busy fucking Kel, which ends quite pleasantly—at least at his end. Kel sits back without saying a word, perhaps contemplating what might happen next.

 

     Kel does manage to ask him how he knew precisely what do when the panic hit. Evidently Nate has a sister who suffers the same symptoms.

     But when Nate suggests that after a good fucking he always enjoys a bowl of cereal, it’s clearly that’s not in the cards given Kel’s silence, and Nate begins to dress, being reminded immediately not to wear his shoes on the carpet. Nate quietly leaves.

     Kel showers again and begins to vacuum, presumably to remove any unwanted organisms that might have entered the house. But in the middle of all his ridiculous actions, even he abandons his compulsions, pouring himself a bowl of Fruit Loops cereal, and so doing recognizing the absurdity of his actions. He texts Nate again to ask if still wants a bowl of cereal. We don’t know Nate’s answer, but Kel seems to have forgotten his momentary recovery as he returns to his vacuuming.

     I don’t quite know what we are to make of Bardo’s 12-minute movie. Fortunately, the director doesn’t make fun of Kel, although there is certainly a comic tone to the short, with bouncy music by Jerome Kurtenbach. Is it just to remind us that some people have this problem so that if we meet up with white-knuckled Grindr friend, we will be prepared? Are we simply to sympathize with people like Kel who want something different than they can accept? The film certainly does not make for compulsive viewing.

 

Los Angeles, July 18, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).