Marco Zanoni | Jain / 2012

no experience

by Douglas Messerli

Marco Zanoni (screenwriter and director) Jain / 2012 [14 minutes]

 

A gay man Fabi (Stefan Mascheck) has been having sex for some time with a motocross racer, Benjamin Maleck (Karim Khomiakov), although they’ve had several breaks in their relationship because Benni refuses to admit he’s gay and insistently declares their bedtime sex is due to his alcohol consumption. His claims are so preposterous and meaningless that Fabi is near despair, particularly when, as he leaves, Benni spouts the absurd sentence, “Thanks for the experience.”

      When Fabi earlier asks Benni when he might see him again, he invites him to the races as a photographer the next day and to party he’s throwing in his own trailer later that night, but Fabi, not a fan of the races, is even more unsure of attending the party with Benni’s macho, homophobic friends.

      Fabi’s own mother (Elke Henrich), worried for her son’s happiness, suggests that Benni is simply not the right man for him, and Fabi’s lesbian girlfriend agrees. In order to find true happiness, she argues, Fabi has to stop trying to imagine that someone like Benni will eventually come round, although Fabi’s former lover, now a good friend, hints that in the invitation perhaps Benni is trying to hint at something, indicating a change in his behavior.

       Fabi does show up for the event. But when the races, which Fabi has been asked to photograph, are over, Benni hurries away saying he has to shower, meaning that they will have no time together alone. But once more Benni begs Fabi to join up at the party, and again Fabi is worried about the situation, although Benni half-jokingly promises to protect him if he is attacked.

       At the drunkfest most of Benni’s friends stand at a distance from Fabi, but seem basically unthreatening, even if he is left totally alone. But at one point the nastiest of Benni’s group, Maik (Timocin Ziegler) approaches Fabi, calling him a fag and arguing that this is no place for him. As Fabi reacts, a physical battle ensures. But almost immediately, as promised, Benni does enter into the fray, slugging Maik, who now, along with all of Benni’s old friends, declare that he too is obviously a “fag.”

        After everyone has left, Fabi and Benni sit alone together, Benni finally grasping Fabi’s hand and interlocking fingers with him, making it apparent that he no longer will find excuses to deny their real relationship.

        Jain, a German film directed by Marco Zanoni is not a particularly original “coming out” film, if you can even describe it as fitting that genre given that the central figure’s relationship has been a long one, and Fabi has been openly gay the entire time. Even his invitation to the party surely must have signified to others that Benni had befriended a gay man whom he wanted included in his festivities, a sure give away of his sexual orientation. But the film doesn’t bother to ask subtle questions, moving blithely through its central theme: love will find a way. Too bad we have nothing on which to evaluate their feelings for one another or have no explanation for their love.

 

Los Angeles, December 11, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).