Brian Bolster | One Year Lease / 2014

messages from rita

by Douglas Messerli

 

Brian Bolster (screenwriter and director) One Year Lease / 2014 [11 minutes]

 

Gay boys Brian and Tom move into a New York apartment, signing a one-year lease. As Bolster himself put it, “The apartment seemed OK, it definite had potential, it definitely needed work,” but this is New York City, where potential is nearly everything. Unfortunately, this gay couple had no idea that their landlady Rita was totally crazy and would call them, leaving messages on their phone night and day, eventually leaving over 100 voicemails.

    Most tenants might simply go crazy, but as a student in the film program of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Bolster knew just what to do, creating a strange kind of documentary wherein Rita speaks mostly for herself as she begins with a simple offer to feed their cat, Casper (she’s a cat lady), and quickly begins to transgress on their privacy with an offer to take over any unwanted pots and pans in their kitchen, a paper shredder—if they should happen to want to give one away—and almost anything else they might wish to abandon.

      But it quickly gets worse, spinning out of control. She reports that they might notice a bird cage at the top of the stoop (she’s nursing a pigeon) and where Brian and Tom might find a suitable refrigerator. Meanwhile, there is a serious leak in the ceiling, as well, it appears, from their kitchen sink and their shower. And in the next frame they have no heat.

     Rita is ready to call the plumber, but Brian doesn’t want people in the apartment when they’re not there, to which Rita expresses her surprise. Another telephone call from Rita announces that the plumber Jimmy is on his way.

     From the next phone call, we have to presume that Jimmy never showed up, but is now to be expected. Another call soon after describes the fact that Casper, now in the dark, is crying. Rita wonders if Brian’s friend is actually feeding Casper, although we clearly see Brian feeding the cat. She’s very upset for Casper (actually, I’d say, good for her). Her presumptions that they’re abusing their pet is taken poor Rita over the edge of any land lady’s responsibility.

    The next time things have escalated to anger. She has possession of five pieces of male from Thomas and wants it immediately picked up. Somebody, she declares, snuck back into the apartment, refusing to open the door. “She wasn’t born yesterday,” and realizes that something is amiss. All she wants to do is to leave the mail, so she declares, in their apartment with whoever is feeding the cat.

      It’s now escalated, she insisting she has nothing against the cat, “That’s why I prefer cats over people. Casper is innocent.”

      Now she asks that when they come home, she needs to talk with them. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to evict you. It has nothing to do with that.” Meanwhile, we see someone removing their tenant names from the door, someone pulling down mementoes. Clear the two men are packing up to leave. All Rita wants to tell them as they should put out the garbage now, since the garbage men come very early in the morning.

    The next morning at 7:00 am, she wants the boys to take a look out their window to see how someone evidently messed up her garbage bags. Brian and Tom are busy packing.

      Her next call to Thomas requests that he come upstairs to knock on her door.

     In a call to Brian she announces that her cat needs to be medicated, having had all her teeth extracted. She just wants one of them to hold the cat with a towel while she feeds her the medicine. 

      She’s now calling almost madly about the fact that they have not replied to her messages. She’s now begging them, after they leave the party, to come upstairs and knock of her door. The calls now are coming late at night, early on mornings. Please let her know when they return.

 

      Rita finally wonders when they’re returning to she won’t get scared. “You can call late. I stay up late.” We see a now empty apartment, and though we realize her total madness, we become also sad for her, a lonely and clueless woman who had perhaps thought that in her two new gay tenants she had found the perfect pair to care for her, to share her interests, and participate in her life.

 

     In the last scenes we see Brian and Tom in their very lovely and quiet new apartment, wherein Casper contentedly sits licking his paws. The final call is from Rita’s lawyer who insists that they are permitted to use their security deposit as the last month’s rent, that in fact they sued the previous tenants and won when they attempted to do the same thing. It’s clear that Rita is having difficulty keeping tenants.

      

Los Angeles, June 19, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).