Terry Raymont | Understanding / 2016 [commercial advertisement]

the snapshot

by Douglas Messerli

 

Terry Raymont (screenwriter and director) Understanding / 2016 [3 minutes] [commercial advertisement]

 

In a short three-minute Kodak ad of 2016, Terry Raymont created a gay semi-melodrama that parallels so many longer gay coming out movies that preceded it.

     Two young boys, Dylan (Taylor Turner and Nolan (Jaz Goodreau) who together play on the local baseball team, return home to Nolan’s house after a game, retreating immediately to his bedroom.

     Nolan’s little sister, Claire (Reiley Trombetta) inexplicably comes racing up the stairs and opens her brother’s bedroom door at the very moment that the two boys are kissing.

      A few moments later we hear Nolan’s father (Adam Harper) calling out to him to come downstairs. Claire has obviously told him what she has seen.

      Suddenly walking down the halls of his school, Nolan feels as an outcast. And later in his own yard we see him throwing stones instead of pitching a baseball. He’s clearly hurt by being outed, and feels obviously lonely. During the baseball game, attended by his parents, he feels their disapproving eyes on both him and his fiend Dylan.

      His wheelchair-bound father, however, has other plans. Sneaking into his son’s room he finds a photo in his son’s bedside bureau.

      In the very next scene it is Nolan’s birthday, with his grandparents at the table and his sisters racing around the room. He blows out the candles, and a large rectangular package is handed to him.

     Interspersed between these scenes we see the two boys together in the days in which they first began enjoying each other’s company, with Nolan pulling out his Kodak camera and snapping a selfie of the two of them.

       The birthday package is unwrapped, wherein he discovers his father has matted and framed the photo. Nolan moves to his father, who momentary stands as the two hug, Nolan realizing that despite his gay sexuality, he is still very much loved.

       One of the Kodak memes, “The moments that capture your love” appears in the final frame.

     The famous Kodak logo follows, with presumably our tears and applause. Alas, just a few years later, the famed Kodak camera and snapshots would disappear thanks to digital technology.

 

Los Angeles, September 17, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).