Dennis Shinners | Barrio Boy / 2014

making love with scissors

by Douglas Messerli

 

Dennis Shinners (screenwriter and director) Barrio Boy / 2014 [8 minutes]

 

Into a Brooklyn barrio barber shop run by Quique (Garcia Dennis Garcia) and his cousin (Peter Olivera), and watched over with the mean eyes of Rafa (Andrew Flores), evidently a hanger on of the establishment who won’t let the Hispanic relatives alone, strolls a lovely looking Irish boy, Kevin (Dan Leonard), who the moment Quique sees him becomes his dream lifetime lover.

     Quique convinces the young Adonis to let him wash his hair, and as he cuts it, comments, in an inner dialogue how he would love to seduce him, take him into his bed, and live with him forever—all immediately and in the present.

     Rafa evidently senses something is up, although on the surface Quique behaves with all due propriety, since the moody disapproving onlooker decides to take a stroll outside. Inside the shop, Quique is in heaven.

     But too suddenly, the cut is finished; the boy pays, is given a strong hug, and leaves, Quique’s dream totally unsatisfied. But Cuz observes, he’s left his hat behind, Quique rushing out to see which direction the beauty might have gone. No one is in sight. But at least with the hat in hand, Quique can hope that the boy might possibly return, come back another time and make the magic happen.

       Dennis Shinners’ Barrio Boy is about the dreams gay men have daily, drooling over cute young boys, straight or possibly gay, without results. Dreaming is one of the greatest activities of a closeted gay man living with a community inhospitable to homosexuality.

        This film would be the perfect companion in a showing of Mexican director Roberto Fiesco’s excellent short film Trémulo (Trembling) (2015), which also takes place in a barber shop, where gay desire is truly realized.

 

Los Angeles, December 22, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).