six encounters on the way to love
by Douglas Messerli
Jean Aurenche
and Pierre Bost (screenplay, based on the novel by Roger Peyrefitte), Jean
Delannoy (director) Les amitiés particulières (This Special
Friendship) / 1964
Despite the relative innocence of these sexually maturing boys, you
might almost think, given the constant chaos as perceived by the priests, that
this was a hot-house of homosexual desires. If it is, however, it represents
their own sublimated and sometimes not so hidden sexual attractions.
Unlike the boarding schools we encounter in works like Maurice, Brideshead
Revisited, and if...., for example, these boy’s maturation is
expressed in rather innocent relationships such as the early romance between
two older boys, Lucien Rouvère (François Leccia) and André Ferron (Gérard
Chambre) who meet secretly—often by having their names called up by the
teachers at the beginning of classes for nonexistent meetings with other
priests—exchange florid love poetry, and mix their blood to represent the bond
between them.
When Georges de Sarre, new to the school, discovers that the friendly
boy who sleeps in the bed next to him is having these secret meetings, he pulls
a letter from the boy out of a book which Lucien has left behind, delivering it
up to the père supérieur which results, soon after, with André being expelled.
It’s ironic that Georges begins his school days in this terrifying institution
by serving as a snitch; but many of the sermons the students daily hear are devoted
to warnings such “beware of your friendships, let your friendships be pure and
public,” etc. that for a well-meaning neophyte as Georges, convinces him that
behavior such as Lucien’s is dangerous. Georges, as we shall soon see, moreover
is not a rebel, but an astute intellectual who later is awarded for his
achievements. And strangely, his reporting of his friend’s seemingly aberrant
behavior seems to temporarily have a good effect.
Obviously, the relationship was more a physical one than one consisting
of deep spiritual or emotional connections, with, we can speculate, the young
men kissing and embracing without truly having fallen in love. For when Lucien
hears that Georges and he have been selected to accompany the priest in the
following day’s mass, he welcomes it as opportunity to change his ways. As he,
almost absurdly assures Georges, as of 10:35 (checking his watch) he has
converted. And throughout the rest of the film, although he and Georges become
close friends, we never again hear of Lucien involved in student romances.
But, as I mentioned above, Georges’ acts become ironic when only a few
days later, spotting a younger boy, the brother of a student in his class bearing
a lamb down the aisle during the Easter ceremony he almost immediately is
attracted, unable to control his visual excitement.
Soon after, he encounters the engaging youth, Alexandre Motier (Didier
Haudepin), once again on the train to school, where Alexandre is now enrolled.
Almost from that moment on, Christian Matras’ camera cannot take its eye off
of the photogenic youth except when it
focuses on Georges’ radiant adoration of the youth’s beauty. In the train, when
the boy momentarily is sent out of the coach in which he is sitting with other
boys playing a guessing game, and sticks his head
Neither of them can keep their eyes off of each other in mass, and when
it comes time to take communion, Georges elbows his way ahead of Lucien so that
he might kneel at the alter next to Alexandre and follow him, after receiving
the wafer, back to his pew. Evidently for these two young lovers, not even the
communion rail is sacred.
Not
unlike the early trials and tribulations of modern day coming-of-age and coming
out dramas, the meetings in the beginning are fraught with problems. At their
first meeting Alexandre storms out in a pique of jealously that Georges has
dared to mention their friendship to Lucien. The next day Georges resolves the
situation by managing to place gift of a bottle of lavender hair oil by the
boy’s dinner plate.
Upon their second potting shed-rendezvous, Alexandre reports the devious
methods his confessor priest, Father Lauzon (Louis Seigner), is using to
wheedle out information about their relationship. Afraid that he might
accidentally expose his hidden thoughts or, more importantly, that Georges
might lead him into actions which expose their own secret desires, he almost
interviews his elder:
alexandre: Do you
know what you ought not to know?
georges: Yes, I
know.
alexandre: Is it
interesting?
georges: I’m not
interested.
Their conversation may relieve Alexandre from
the fear of their actualizing their feelings for one another. But the fact that
his hair already smells of the lavender provided by Georges and that he
presents him with a gift of a lock of his beautiful mane taped to a piece of
paper suggests they have already moved somewhat beyond the purity of mere
admiration.
On
the other hand, the priests themselves are constantly on the alert for the
prurient in even the most innocent of acts. When the bedroom rector, Father
Trennes (Michel Bouquet) discovers Lucien and Georges whispering to one another
late at night, he challenges them to reveal what they were talking about (it
probably concerned Georges’ relationship with Alexandre). The boys claim they
were just speaking nonsense to which he aptly replies, “When people talk late
at night it is about something serious.” Inviting them into his room, he serves
up sherry and cigarettes, explaining that as an archeologist by profession, his
job is to decipher the secrets of the past, just as he discerns the secrets of
his charges. Insisting that he knows they are lying, he demands that they make
confession with him in order to be sinless for the Easter Eucharist. But it is
also apparent that he will use any thing they might confess to his advantage,
perhaps even hoping to engage them in sexual activities with him in the name of
penitence. Fortunately, the boys are able to outwit him through their
declaration that they are pure of thought and have nothing, accordingly, to
confess.
Meanwhile, in this world of secret loves and betrayals someone has captured one of Alexandre’s epistles, which, when interrogated, he claims represent the words of his father instead of those intended for anyone else. He is sentenced to the punishment of kneeling for long hours every day. Observing the boy in pain, Georges dares to take an unscheduled meeting with the Father Superior to explain that the boy is innocent, since he has suggested to Alexandre that a speech Georges presented was for him, which the boy mistakenly interpreted as a sign of admiration, writing in response innocent words of appreciation.
At
their third meeting, Alexandre has determined that the two are now one, that
their love is mutual and to represent that they must exchange blood. They do so
in a ceremony the boy titles “United Forever,” drawing them even closer
together beyond the spiritual into aspects of the flesh as they each closely
watch the other cutting the knife across their arms, sucking the blood from
small wounds, and gently touching each other’s open cut.
Trennes again warns Georges of what he has observed their constant
shared gazes throughout dinner hours and even witnessed the kisses that
Alexandre blows toward the elder as they dine. He claims that Alexandre has now
asked him to become his confessor, and that if Georges will not admit to the
relationship he will discover the truth through his torturous questioning of
the boy.
Terrified of what he may discover and observing the fact that
immediately after speaking with Georges Trennes invites another dormitory boy
to his room, Georges slips out of bed with a note he pushes under the Father
Superior’s door. The Superior, rushing to Trennes’ room discovers the priest
and the boy in the room together with spirits and cigarettes lying upon the
table.
The next morning Trennes has been relieved of his position, suggesting
to Georges: “I think you know why I’m leaving the place.” Georges admits that
he does, and surprisingly Trennes thanks him for honesty while apprising him
not to fear retaliation. Instead he asks Georges to pray for him, obviously
realizing that he himself was ready to bring “what he ought not to know” into
reality.
On the fourth secret meeting, this time, appropriately during a
rainstorm, Alexandre discovers the door to the potting shed barred. But Georges
has already found a nearby comfy spot in a shed filled with hay. Here, for the
first time, they actually lay down beside one another, leaning toward, at least
visually, actual physical contact. George takes out cigarettes and lights them,
the standard symbolic cinematic invitation to sex. And within moments the boys
are tousling with one another as they blow smoke into each other’s faces. At
one moment Georges is on the verge of hovering over the boy’s supine body but
at that very moment Father Lauzon enters, shocked by his discovery, sending one
by one the boys off, Lauzon whispering to Georges as he leaves, “Don’t come
back here next year.”
During the next few days, both Georges and Alexandre, who still someone
manage to meet up during a music lesson with a blind priest, both await their
punishments, presuming that at least Georges and possibly Alexandre also will
be expelled. Alexandre, however, continues to imagine a perfect ending, the two
of them joining up over their summer break and eventually becoming a couple
forever just as their blood has now made them one. For him the magic word is
now
Yet, when Lauzon finally does approach Georges he assures him that he
will not be expelled as long as he meets his demands that the two can never
again speak to one another, and they can no longer remain friends. Once more
Georges attempts to convince the priest that any wrongdoing was his, that what
have first drawn him to the boy were changed upon actually meeting him: “My
evil thoughts left me when I met Alexandre.”
There is one thing, however, that the priest also demands in order to
“save” the still rebellious boy’s soul: Georges must return the letters
Alexandre has written, making it clear that there is no longer a possibility of
a relationship.
Georges breaks into tears, pleading with the pretender who claims to
care deeply for the boy, knowing that if he were to do that it would represent
his compete betrayal of the innocent Alexandre. Lauzon demands that in order to
save the boy he must be made to understand that the “past is dead.”
Georges has no choice if he is to prevent the boy’s expulsion and
familial embarrassment. After Georges is awarded the prize for his studies, he
leaves the packet of letters on Lauzon’s desk and hurries off with his parents
who have attended the event.
Shown the packet and told that Georges have left without saying goodbye,
Alexandre is in shock, now forced to travel home by train with a “well-meaning”
priest overseeing his and his colleagues’ trip.
Finally, at one point Alexandre rises and walks into the corridor just
as he did that day he first met Georges. Before the open window he tears up the
letters Georges and written and has still refused to hand over to the priest,
throwing them to the wind.
The camera shifts to a position outside the train, as we watch the
corridor door handle move to a downward position. When Lauzon realizes that the
boy is missing, he stops the train.
Like Anna Karenina, Alexandre has allowed a train to resolve his lovelorn
sufferings.
Several days later Lauzon visits the Marquise de Sarre’s mansion in
order to speak with Georges. The young man is in tears and both share their
disbelief that Alexandre has died. But when Lauzon speaks of the event as an
accident, Georges now interrupts him to assert “It was no accident.” While
Lauzon says he hopes Georges is mistaken, Georges argues “I prefer the truth.”
But even more importantly he finally admits “I
cannot accept his death. It was not his purity I loved.”
Claiming to also have loved him in trying to save his soul, Lauzon hands
Georges a candid picture that he had taken of Alexandre in which the beautiful
boy lays asleep sitting in a banquet.
In return, Georges gives Lauzon a letter, now his last letter, he had
written to Alexandre hoping to deliver it in person during their summer
vacation:
I’ll deliver this letter
myself. The thought delights me. I’ll
see your street, watch
out for you. Trust me as I trust you.
I may have had other
friends, but you’re my only friend now.
We have had joy enough to
fill volumes and volumes.
Our friendship is in my
hands now, after being in yours.
I’ll keep it as you have.
And our friendship’s name is love.*
At the beginning of this film, the director presents us a written
apologia, of sorts, an assertion that the tragedy that happens in this work is
itself something of the past, without the possibility of being repeated.
This film takes place in
an already distant time. The story
it tells could not happen
today. Discipline is no longer as
severe in colleges, and
the educational methods are very
different. But what will
never change, what remains eternal
are the emotions which
test the threshold of adolescence.
If
anyone is naive enough to believe the first three sentences he will surely be
unable to comprehend the final one. For we well know—and there have been
hundreds of films, books, essays, and journalistic pieces attesting to the
fact—that wherever young adolescents of the same sex fall in love there are
dozens of others immediately surrounding them with admonitions, lectures,
condolences, and hate. This film, with its controversial subject of pre-teen
and teenage love, I would argue, could not possibly be released today, and if
it were it would be heavily censored, even given the fact that no sexual
activity is portrayed. Perhaps only a few directors such as the Danish director
Lasse Nielsen, particularly in his 1978 work You Are Not Alone, have
even dared cautiously tiptoe into this pedophilic territory, and that work was
highly controversial. My former Google blog and all other blogs were taken down
by Goggle for my publication on-line of my essay on that very film.
And only the French would could have tolerated the adaptation of
Peyrefitte’s work, particularly given the fact that during the shooting of This
Special Friendship the 57-year-old author met a 12-year-old playing a choir
boy in the film, Alain-Phillippe Malagnac d’Argens de Villèle, with whom he
fell in love, developing a rocky relationship with the boy that he would
chronicle in the novels Notre amour (1967) and L'enfant de cœur
(1978). Malagnac later died in a fire in 2000 at the age of 49, shortly after
Peyrefitte’s death that same year, possibly from suicide since the novels
describe them as having made a suicide pact, with the intention of the one
committing suicide upon the other’s death.
*Many of the incidents in this work remind me
of Oscar Wilde’s trial, where poems he had sent to young men were interpreted
to be lurid expressions of his love for them. And the last line of Georges
letter reminds me of Wilde’s observations about “the love which has no name,”
although obviously here Georges is openly naming it by speaking of their
“special” friendship.
Los Angeles, March 13, 2021
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog and
World Cinema Review (March 2021).
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