Stéphane Riethauser | Prora / 2012

 love in the ruins

by Douglas Messerli

 

Stéphane Riethauser (screenwriter and director) Prora / 2012 [23 minutes]

 

Swiss director Stéphane Riethauser’s Prora has to be one of the most sophisticated and beautiful short LGBTQ films of the second decade of the new century. First of all, it is filmed at one of the most bizarre structures in the world, the former Nazi holiday camp and later Communist military complex, Prora, now abandoned, on Germany’s Rügen Island at the Baltic Sea. Inexplicably, two friends, the somewhat timid German Jan (Tim Gramenz) and the French outwardly macho womanizer Matthieu (Swen Gippa) meet to spend their summer vacation.

     We don’t if they are there with their parents or have somehow chosen this strange spot by the ocean themselves, nor do we know how their friendship developed or how long in the past they first met one another. All we can say is they apparently enjoy one another’s company and have clearly spent a great deal of time together in the past. Perhaps their families have regularly vacationed at this resort for some time now. But clearly they have found one another without visiting each other’s home country.

      Although Jan speaks some French, Matthieu mocks his accent and keeps defining Jan, because of his lean build and seemingly shy demeanor as his “little” friend. Basically, they behave as do most young teenagers in gay movies, alternately basking in the sun, skipping along the shore, and roughhousing, Matthieu bragging of his sexual exploits with women to the other, while Jan mocks him for his often course and sometimes dangerous behavior.

      Like many “best friends” in gay films, there seems to be no real logic of why they are attracted to one another except that they each offer something that the other lacks, the German in this case being the more refined and less outwardly aggressive, while the Frenchman behaves rather more like a stumbling American oaf who offers up adventures on which Jan might otherwise never embark.

      The film actually begins near to where it ends, with Jan sitting alone on a high sea wall looking out toward to sea in contemplation of both the view and what has occurred that resulted in the deep recently stitched-up wound on his upper thigh.

    We are taken back to some of their early meetings as we discover the differences in the two I describe above as the narrative also establishes their friendship. Bored by simply “hanging out,” an activity which Jan seems to prefer, Mathieu suddenly determines to break into the endless complex of buildings that stretch almost as far as the eye can see.

     Jan hangs back as Matthieu enters through an open doorway and disappears, Jan ultimately having no choice if he is to remain in Matthieu’s company but also to enter the labyrinth. As he seeks out his friend, he quite quickly gets lost in the endless open corridors with staircases hooking up at odd places. Eventually he reaches the final floor calling out to Matthieu as he goes, without any success in locating him. Finally, when he about to retreat, Matthieu can be heard in a large open room where he has found a Nazi flag, and when Jan appears he torments the boy by calling him his little Nazi and charging at him draped in the red swastika banner like a bull, reminding him of his country’s shameful past.

      At first Jan is rightfully irritated by the obscene gestures, but ultimately joins his friend as they run through the long corridors breaking out windows as they pass, eventually finding even a larger open space where Mathieu lays down among the broken glass, exhausted by his athletic adventures.

      Before he can even comprehend his situation Jan moves toward him, towering over him, and bending down to begin—much as in the film Dear Friend—the long descent into a gentle kiss on his lips. When Matthieu remains passive, Jan follows it up with another kiss on his neck, and another and yet one more before kissing him through his ripped shirt across the chest.

 

     The camera discretely pulls away from a view of Jan sprawled atop Matthieu to show us the foreground of a long hall of broken glass and debris, as we hear the pull of belts, the snap of buttons, the slip of pants, the slurp of mouths, and the flap of flesh on flesh in a long off-stage cinematic portrayal of the boys’ sexual release. It may be one of the sexiest depictions of gay fucking and sucking I have ever experienced without being a visual witness.

    The camera returns to the room to witness Matthieu, still laying prone, as he buttons up his pants.

    If Matthieu has been utterly compliant, when he awakens from his satiation he immediately turns into a furious and frightened homophobe, rushing from the room, Jan following, pushing his former friend away as he attempts to find his way out, only to be met with dead ends and further expanses of empty space. When Jan tries to reason with him, suggesting another route, he slugs him and pushes him into a pile of broken glass, forcing the boy to remain behind to nurse the blood flowing his deep wounds.

 

     So we return the Jan at the sea wall. Soon after, with Jan sitting alone on the beach, Matthieu appears, for moment hovering over him—one might almost imagine in rage, but apparently peacefully, as he sits beside his “friend,” and eventually lays down flat on the sand, Jan joining him.

     Soon Matthieu stands and walks slowly out in the surf, Jan following far behind. Matthieu dives into the shallow waters, and eventually Jan follows his lead, the two swimming for a short while before turning back.

      It is the time for them to say goodbye, Matthieu evidently heading back that afternoon to Paris, and Jan to Berlin, where previously Matthieu had promised to one day visit him. The two hug, torn away from one another by their family abodes.

      Once more, we realize these two boys are now closer to being young men who can never again be friends, but if they do meet up once more will surely recognize themselves as having been briefly splendid lovers.

 

Los Angeles, July 8, 2021