friends and lovers
by
Douglas Messerli
Marius
Gabriel Stancu (screenwriter and director) È solo nella mia testa (It's Just in
My Head) / 2020 [17 minutes]
Andreas
(Claudio Segaluscio) and Alessandro (Carmine Fabbricatore) have known each
other from childhood, and now every year they summer together as friends at a
seaside resort, swimming, sunning themselves, and just hanging out with one
another. But now the summer is nearly over
Alessandro can stay on with his girlfriend
for another week and then he must return to write his dissertation. His friend
is so irritated by the situation that he leaves without even sharing in another
swim with Alessandro.
But we so recognize, if we haven’t been
alerted by our gaydar, that Andreas is in love with Alessandro, and his
irritation is not just because his vacation has come an end, but the fact that
yet another year has passed without his friend even hinting that he might be homosexual.
Andreas returns to his room, takes out a
package of new snapshots he’s taken of himself and Alessandro, and chooses one
to bring to bed with him as he masturbates.
Fortunately, Italian director Marius Gabriel Stancu surprises us. Some time seems to have passed, when Alessandro, now home again, checks his mailbox to find an envelope containing the very photos that we’ve just seen Andreas peruse. To some of these photos he’s attached notes telling his friend, after all these years, the real reasons for what he has long described as Andreas’ moods of “nostalgia.” He admits that all these years that he’s been in love with his Alessandro, waiting for a sign which never came.
Alessandro attempts to call his old buddy to assure him that his feelings have not been such a secret, and that he has shares his sentiments. It appears that Andreas has gone to the beach; Alessandro follows, the two of them meeting up in the water with the romantic Palolo Baltaro ditty “Minha mente, somente” playing in the background.
Instead of the standard breakup of old
friends, these long-time besties realize that their friendship has turned into
love. Unfortunately, however, this short film’s conceit is even more irritating
than the predictability of the other. Although it’s lovely that the two may now
be beginning a relationship, since we know absolutely nothing about them, its
difficult to care about what happens in the end.
Los
Angeles, May 30, 2024
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).
No comments:
Post a Comment