Christophe Prédari | Chaleur humaine (Human Warmth) / 2012

love letter

by Douglas Messerli

 

Christophe Prédari (screenwriter and director) Chaleur humaine (Human Warmth) / 2012 [11 minutes]

 

This short film begins with Antoine (Thomas Coumans) reciting, in a highly poetic manner, apparently why he loves his friend Bruno (Adrien Desbons). To quote just a few lines: “I love your mouth and its grimaces, its insolence…and your twinkling eyes looking at me. I love the triangle of your smile, your fair and messy hair, unwilling to surrender. I love kissing the mole on your right shoulder…. I love your caressing me all over. I love it when you’re crazy.” The epistle continues.

  

   But actually, we soon discover, these are not Antoine’s words, but Bruno’s, written in a letter that he has given Antoine, and which he now wishes he hadn’t

     Clearly, they have broken up, Antoine returned to him in a final attempt to regain his love and restore their relationship. Antoine retreats to the bathroom while Bruno looks over the letter he has given his friend.

 

    Antoine returns to the room entirely naked, Bruno hardly being able to resist him as the two hug and kiss, the screen now presenting us with an almost balletic outdoors memory of their passion. The two, now both naked, lying on the grass in a beech forest, with Antoine over Bruno’s body, kissing him slowly up and down his body. Finally, Bruno turning over to get fucked which Antoine begins before the love gradually turns into anger as he hits and slugs his lover, the two now being separated from each other, one laying in a fetal position alone and cold.

     We return to the living room scene. Bruno hands him back the letter he has written about his love, folds it tight into Antoine’s hand.

      Antoine, now dressed leaves what we can only believe is forever.

      This work is, of course, a perfect theatrical simulacrum of what a love that eventually disappears is all about, the two young lovers assured that their bodies will always be enough to

keep the other near them, to provide them with the human warmth that love brings to our lives. When love dies, we might as well be naked, alone in nature, without anyone to come to our side. Memories, written missives, a few hugs, fragments of a relationship is all that we are left. What do love letters mean when the words are no longer felt?

       This short poetic work by French speaking Belgian director Christophe Prédari is by no means profound or even that original; but it nicely conjures up the feelings of love lost at the end of a passionate affair—the kind of movie very few British or US directors could ever imagine bringing to the screen.

 

Los Angeles, May 2, 2024

Reprinted from My Queen Cinema blog (May 2024).