John G. Young | Parallel Sons / 1995

an american tragedy

by Douglas Messerli

 

John G. Young (screenwriter and director) Parallel Sons / 1995

 

If you can endure the incredible coincidence of a young man living in an upstate New York Adirondack village in the 1990s—whose father is a gun dealer and whose girlfriend’s father is the town sheriff, who himself feels so terribly alienated from his world that he has come to totally identify with American blacks, painting images of black political events, listening primarily to black music, particularly rap, and even corn-rolling his blonde locks, but who, in fact, has never even met a black person in his young life—in the early scenes of this film is held up in the local café by a black man just escaped from the local young men’s reformatory school, then you will probably be moved, as I was, by this emotionally compelling, poetic film by John G. Young.

 

    Put realism behind you as Young explores two beautiful boys, Seth Carlson (Gabriel Mann) and Knowledge Johnson (Laurence Mason) who come from opposite trajectories to meet up in rural US only to discover not only that they have a great deal in common, but that their fates are inextricably entwined. 

      Knowledge robs the café with the hope that he can get enough money to escape from the town to nearby Canada. But he’s been terribly hurt in the process of going on the run. Seth seems almost fearless as he hands over the money, only a moment or two later, bending to the floor to help his assailant who has collapsed. Almost calmly and with a kind of peaceful assuredness, he picks up the other man and takes him to a cabin in the woods outside the house, a ways from town, where he lives with his father and sister, the mother having recently died of cancer.

      Although the father, Peter Carlson (Graham Alex Johnson) cannot comprehend why his son behaves in the strange manner he does, he accepts him as a basically good boy, and gives him leeway to explore his current obsessions without totally standing in his way. But while Seth hopes to escape to an art school in New York City, his father insists the local community college is where his son will be best educated. And that battle alone, along with Seth’s total alienation from his Adirondack town puts them at a near stand-off.

      Seth feels equally put-off by his supposed girlfriend Kristen Mott (Heather Gottlieb) who truly believes that they will marry and does everything she can to get Seth to carry through his heavy kissing and petting into an actual sex. When she gets him drunk and tries to crawl into bed with him, he grows furious, sending her off in such confusion and fear that she has her own kind of breakdown, escaping from home and hiding out for a few days without telling anyone where she has gone.

      Seth is now caring for the stranger in the cabin, mostly nursing him through the night before Knowledge’s fever finally breaks. But the two do not immediately hit it off, Knowledge understandably resentful that the strange kid believes somehow that listening to rap and imitating a black hairstyle will in any way to bring him closer to truly understanding what it is to be a black man in the society from which he comes. Knowledge might prefer to settle down in the American paradise he sees in the beautiful wilderness in which Seth lives. The boy, he attempts to explain, has no understanding of how mean and difficult it is to survive the New York City borough where he lived, Brooklyn. Seth, on the other hands, suggests Knowledge doesn’t comprehend the racism and open hostility towards any kind of difference that exists in his world.

      Slowly, as Knowledge heals and the boy brings him food he steals from his family cupboards and the two share their innate and learned interests, the boy’s bond, Seth finally inviting the black into the house on his father’s night out, while demanding his sister, whose care falls mostly to her brother, keep their visitor’s presence a secret, even though she, as smart as she is, has already guessed who he is and from where he has come.

     After sharing some pot, liquor, and a beautiful jazz record, Seth invites Knowledge into his own personal shrine to black culture and, finally, to stay the night in his own bed, the two discovering that they have something beyond black culture in common, that they both are gay and are falling in love with one another. Afraid of the consequences of their feelings, they touch and hug but apparently don’t engage in sex.

      We recognize, of course, that it was only a matter of time before Knowledge’s whereabouts would be discovered, particularly given the racism of one of Seth’s fellow café employees and the fact that in search of Seth, Kristen has come across the black man in the forest cabin. As the Sherriff arrives at their doorstep, Seth refuses to give him entry, pulling out the gun he has taken from Knowledge earlier. As the Sherriff, who has known the boy since he was a baby, moves forward with the knowledge that he is incapable of carrying through with what he threatens, Seth does the unthinkable, pulling the trigger and killing him—suddenly putting the basically “innocent” Knowledge into serious jeopardy.

      The two have no choice but go on the run, borrowing the café owner’s car. But we know already that their escape is doomed. Unable to believe his own son has committed the murder, the father himself pulls out his rifle and tracks the two escapees at the same moment that state police check out every standard route of escape.

      Seth’s knowledge of the backland gives them some hope, but when they run out of gas, there seems to be little possibility, although the local boy is still convinced that they can make it on foot in a couple of days’ time. But when Seth falls from a final rock, breaking his leg, they are doomed.

       In another forest cabin they finally engage in sexual release, Knowledge explaining how he ended up in reform school, recounting the horrible experience of how his young, six-year-old son found a revolver in a drawer, pulled it out and accidentally shot himself to death, the system sending him, the boy’s father, as the responsible adult, to the youthful offenders’ facility from where he has escaped.

       The boys might still have made it over the border, however, were not for the confluence of forces, the state police and Seth’s own father, the latter convinced that the Sherrif has been killed by Knowledge and his own son kidnapped. But when upon confronting them, Seth tells him the truth before both again run off, he puts the rifle into position, focuses, and despite the state police demands he put down the gun, fires. That he kills his own son, not Knowledge, makes it clear that he has, in fact, believed Seth, and by killing him has made certain the truth will never be spoken again.

       Knowledge is now recaptured, and we are almost certain that this time the charge against him will be first-degree murder. It is as if the horror of the past has caught up with him to bring him down again without relent. Everyone he loves, it appears, is destroyed by the very fact that he survives. And yet another man, in this terrible complex of tragedies, must suffer for having been responsible for the death of his own son. 

 

Los Angeles, April 3, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).