Tom Prezman and Tzor Edery | Maurice’s Bar / 2023 [animation]

the algerian

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tom Prezman and Tzor Edery (screenwriters and directors) Maurice’s Bar / 2023 [15 minutes] [animation]

 

On a train going nowhere, a former drag queen calls up her memories of one of Paris’ first gay bar, owned by Jewish-Algerian Moise (Maurice). Located on the Ru Duperré, this animated film takes us back to 1909 in Paris. An apparent woman knocks on the door and is permitted entry. It is the drag queen Bobette, who will soon be telling us this story.

 

  Her friends hope no one followed her there, “like so many follow you to the bed.” And they’re soon relating the numerous recent arrests. Maurice, known as The Algerian, was also in prison, one declares, for having kissed a man on the streets of Algiers. Rumor has that he once killed a man with a single punch.

    It also appears at Maurice is Jewish, since one of them comments “I thought Jews weren’t supposed to have tattoos.” Another reports that he sold furs in Algiers. And just as suddenly the handsome Maurice appears in a white sable coat. Everyone runs over the kiss him, particularly Bobette. The entire group, Maurice included, comments on the beautiful buns of one man who passes their table.

    Outside, however, police seem to be gathering, as within the drag queens begin to paint their eyes. The show begins with an obscene dance. Beardless and rough men, prostitutes of all genders, women in trousers, all are at Maurice’s. Two men passionately kiss onstage.

     They mention another bar of the past, Le Scarabée. But few seem to recall it, believing Maurice’s bar to be the first. But some recall it, a bar they visited in 1900 owned by two lesbians. It was closed down by a police raid just a few months after it opened.

     They mention that the police also regularly visit Maurice’s, to “out ‘little theater of insults to morality.” One adds “In the evening they seek are company and at night, they arrest us.” “Either way, we’re fucked,” adds a third.

     But this night the wolves are waiting outside the door.

     We’re now told another story, how after a few days after opening the bar a client shot Maurice in the chest, someone who wanted the bar closed. Or perhaps someone with a deep jealousy, a lover from his past?

     As Bobette sings, we note that the police have gathered in full force just outside the door. But the three who enter, simply wish him a bonsoir, and join the singer upon the stage. Three artists are arrested for dancing and singing, so the newspapers report the next morning, “in a small sinful bar.” They are accused of public indecency, feminine impersonation, and the corruption of the youth. Does this sound familiar, even today as many Southern states in the US are attempting to once more ban drag performances?

 

     Its owner, so we are told, will have no choice but to close the bar.

     In the next frame chaos has taken over; the bar is gone. It is now 1942 in the French Occupied Zone. Now, 33 years later, the narrator reveals that they (this time the Nazis) have also taken Maurice away, this time as part of the holocaust (a Jewish homosexual). They provide him with a new tattoo.

     “We should have known what the future reserved for us, the perverts, the foreigners, the degenerates. Everyone looks the other way thinking only we shall be hurt. But war, it’s like a drunken drag queen doing a show who pitilessly mocks everyone in the crowd and leaves nobody unscathed. You’ll die in those damned camps. I’ll never see you again. All that remains are my memories of the bar and of you.

      The final credits read: “Moise ‘Maurice’ Zekri 1879-1942. Born in Algeria, lived in Paris, died in Auschwitz. Owner of the second queer bar in Paris.”

      One suspects, given the wonderful animation of this Israeli-French production, and the increasingly loss of gay and lesbian bars in LGBTQ history, that eventually we might find many more documentaries, histories, and fictional works based on the substantial institutions that these gathering places have offered to LGBTQ+ individuals over the years. Several books on the subject have become available over the last few years.

 

Los Angeles, June 21, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).