Michael Tringe | Dirty Love / 2006

getting to know the territory

by Douglas Messerli

 

Michael Tringe (screenwriter and director) Dirty Love / 2006 [6 minutes]

 

In Michael Tringe’s tense 6-minute film, a young teen boy Derik (Dustin Varpness) living in a small Western town becomes fed up with his life, particularly after a school day when he discovers his truck marked up with the word “Fag,” and toilet-paper fully covering it over.

     The naïve boy catches the first train to Los Angeles and spends the day wandering Hollywood, West Hollywood and environs, buying a new orange hoodie for the evening. As he walks down the street a pimp (Matt Ryan) quickly points the boy out to his hustler (D. T. Matias), handing him the keys to a warehouse. The hustler leads the kid to the warehouse and, after allowing few a few moments of heavy, nervous breathing from the teen, begins to make love to him, pickpocketing the kid’s billfold.

 

     By the time the pimp arrives, he’s kicked the billfold toward the door, and when the boy, hearing the noise made by the pimp begins to bolt, the hustler bends to pick up the billfold which contains the kid’s money, cards, and probably his major identification.

    For some reason, perhaps remembering his own arrival in town which led him to his current profession, he can’t bring himself to pick-up the billfold, which Derick soon after finds before going on the run.

 

     Derick returns home, a fresh smile on his face that surely includes the fact that he is now safe, but perhaps also embraces a feeling for the first time in his life of the realization that he is gay and, recalling that hustler’s kiss, knows he will truly enjoy sex when he encounters the right guy.

      If nothing else, he now perceives who he truly is, and is no longer afraid of the word used by locals to abuse and attack him.

   Although the tape I watched on Daily Motion 18 years after its original release has severely deteriorated, one can still see that the young University of Southern California director Tringe had an eye for creating some powerful images, and he has gone on the produce several further films.

     

Los Angeles, June 9, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).