Manfred Rott | Utopies (Utopia) / 2012

imaginary places

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jamal Belmahi and Manfred Rott (screenplay), Manfred Rott Utopies (Utopia) / 2012 [22 minutes]

 

In French director Manfred Rott’s Utopia, a young gay boy, Thomas (Pierre Elliott) lives in a tough Paris suburb where he is taunted by the neighborhood boys. On the internet’s “Gay Chat” he meets up with Julien (Romain Poli), obviously a more experienced and perhaps more intelligent young gay man who tours him through his architecturally bizarre neighborhood, where some apartment buildings seem to sprout bulbous pods that serve as balconies.

     He is a great believer, he argues, in imaginary places, places that you create in your imagination, and he is seeking out just such a location to spend the night, wondering if Thomas will join him. The two bicycle on, stopping to swim in a large public fountain before Julien attempts to pull Thomas off into a thicket to have sex. Thomas, evidently still a virgin, is intrigued and obviously interested, but still too frightened to go through with it.

      So they continue on their voyage through the barren suburban landscape, itself filled with failed utopian projects from the past, imaginary spaces perhaps for the couples of decades earlier, some of which now have fallen into decay and abandonment.

      Julien has chosen one such ruin as he destination, Thomas almost terrified to join him in visiting it, a bit like the impossibly vast Nazi Baltic holiday retreat which is at the center Stéphane Riethauser’s Prora released the same year as this movie.

      In the vast space, Julien has already set up a tent where he has stashed his own bags, and now invites Thomas to explore the space with him, as if it were a new mansion into which they have just moved as a couple. Julien keeps attempting to reveal the beauty of the space, while Thomas is almost dizzied in the mess of debris and jumble of wire fences.

     Thomas can only imagine that Julien has taken him there to fuck him, although Julien insists he is not there for sex. Almost in Leonard Bernsteinian refrain, Julien insists it is the place that matters, a place of their own in which to create something. A place in which they can create a utopia.

     Julien shows him the “garden,” a small bower of pine trees that meet up with the fence next to the railroad tracks. What are your dreams, he asks Julien.

     Simple ones evidently: an apartment in Paris, a girlfriend, a job.

     Julien smiles, suggesting that perhaps Thomas should then avoid “Gay Chat.”

     When Thomas asks Julien what he wants, Julien reminds him of his imaginary places, pointing back to the empty building to indicate that this is one of them, adding “with you.”

      Thomas admits that his talk disturbs him, that he always “catches him up.” I might almost suggest that the suddenness of Julien’s attention takes his breath away. He is both flattered and frightened, and hasn’t yet the imagination to even wonder at the possibility since he hasn’t quite even come out to himself.

      Suddenly, Thomas stands up and runs off, with Julien on the chase. It has become a game, the frightened boy hoping to be caught to be taught what love is all about. Just as suddenly, he stops and they kiss, Julien admitting that he isn’t very good at it, but he will teach him.

 

      Angrily, Thomas stomps off. Back in the “garden” he tries to think things out, to decipher the meaning of all the strange events that have been happening to him since he met Julien.

      Julien attempts to call a taxi for Thomas, but the driver won’t pick them out at since a distant location. But now Thomas is ready to learn, and kisses Julien finally with passion as the boys have full sex without reservations.

        They wake up in each other’s arms in the tent, Thomas asking so what about your utopia then.

        Julien admits it doesn’t work, Thomas finally arguing that it was a nice idea.

      Together, both with backpacks this time, they bicycle to the train, hugging one another as Julien enters the car to be taken back to where he lives. Thomas drives back through the gate where the boys again try to haze him, but is unperturbed. Back in his apartment, he opens a window; he has been given a new life. If it is not a utopia it might at least allow him some further dreaming.

      Several commentators have likened Rott’s short film to the work of Derek Jarman. And like Jarman’s work, it certainly does exude a poetic quality that is worth nothing. But I don’t see Jarman here as much as I see similarities with other such short films of the period, including the works of New Zealand Welby Ings and the aforementioned Prora. More to the point is that Rott’s film is a true original, a lovely tale of coming out that doesn’t involve a verbal announcement. Thomas has finally come to terms with himself, while Julien has come to realize that love is not an ideal but a delightful experience. Any utopias in these boys’ worlds has to be left to their future imaginations.

 

Los Angeles, December 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).