Craig Boreham | Transient / 2005

the other half

by Douglas Messerli

 

Craig Boreham (screenwriter and director) Transient / 2005 [10 minutes]

 

Narrated by Ian Roberts, Australian director Craig Boreham’s Transient is a common gay love story where a couple, in this case Daniel (Boreham) and John (Phoenix Leonard), meet up in a strange city and country, in this case Hanoi, Vietnam, and feel such an intense relationship that it is almost as if their have discovered in one another Plato’s “other half.”

     For a long while they feel almost special, Daniel particular anxious to share their relationship with one another and, in particular, with a lesbian friend. Some of those whom they share it, make light of the relationship, not being able to comprehend, a response that evidently is common in Vietnam where gay relationships exist openly but are nonetheless not spoken about.

     Although they both have good jobs, they contemplate moving in together. But gradually they simply “lose one another,” John seeking out other sexual encounters, while Daniel just seems preoccupied with his job. They spend long times apart before reentering one another’s lives with a short intensity, but also realizing that the deep love they once had has evaporated.

      Daniel finds himself seeking for something which he can no longer find. Obviously having hooked up with another guy, one day he sees John, who doesn’t even notice him, on the street, and it suddenly becomes apparent what is missing in his life. But a moment later John is gone, having disappeared from sight.

     Daniel seeks to discover where John now is without success. His friend Monica has briefly met up with John, and describes him as appearing as if he is lost, looking for something. Is he too looking for his now lost other self, ponders Daniel?

     The very beginning the film has shown the return of Daniel to Australia, obviously having never again reencountered the man he once thought of his other half.

      A bit like a tepid version of a Wong Kar-wai movie such as The Mood for Love or even Happy Together, Boreham evokes a strong sense of nostalgia in a world where a sense of true well-being and self-identity is tenuous at most, and love is nearly always fleeting and impossible to sustain.

 

Los Angeles, November 8, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2023).