Mikael Buch | Let My People Go! / 2011

the difference between keeping it all in and sweating it out

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mikael Buch and Christophe Honoré (screenplay), Mikael Buch (director) Let My People Go! / 2011

 

Mikael Buch’s feature film of 2011, Let My People Go! Might be described as a comic cartoon that deconstructs its own stereotypical images as it proceeds. Yet it’s still a cartoon, and the seriousness it longs for is never quite achieved.

 

   That is not to say that, if you can forgive the sometimes egregious stereotypes, that the film isn’t a great deal of fun to watch. Nicolas Maury is particularly charming as a kind of reformed Woody Allen in the role of Ruben, a young gay French man who in order to escape his nearly hysterical Jewish family decides to get an MA in “Comparative Sauna Cultures,” eventually moving to Finland in order to establish a sauna chain. The presumption is that he has taken the heat of his own family’s fireworks for so long, that it’s time to simply sweat it all out and wash himself down in the clear Finnish waters.

      He now indeed lives at the edge of a Finnish lake with his incredibly handsome Nordic, blonde-haired boyfriend, Teemu (Jarkko Niemi). Since the sauna plan has not panned out—Finland already having enough saunas to satisfy its endlessly happy population—Ruben now works as a postman, joyfully delivering up the morning mail in a small Disneyfied village that looks even prettier than the TV community of Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998), and wherein the happy villagers greet him, as they did Truman, with smiles, cookies, and salutations of love.

     In this healthfully permissive world, Teemu’s mother Helka (Outi Mäenpää), who in her youth lived in a ménage à trois with two female Senegalese prostitutes, welcomes her son’s and Ruben’s wedding by capturing a wolf and setting it free in the forest. Nothing could possibly go wrong in this paradise—until one day it does through a series of very strange events which sets Rueben’s life reeling and whirls him back to his impossible family in Paris.

     On his morning route Ruben delivers up a package that the recipient, upon opening it, immediately rejects, demanding the postman hand him back the signed receipt. Inside the package is 999, 980 Euros, with which he refuses to have anything to do. Ruben rightfully refuses to take back the registered package, and the bickering soon becomes physical as the older man grabs the postman as he attempts to escape. Several times it appears the elderly gentleman Tilikainen (Kari Väänänen) is about to have a heart attack, and Ruben is forced to return just to check up on him. But each time it is only a ruse, the man attempting to force the package upon the deliverer.

      By the time Ruben finally escapes, he hears his customer drop to the ground, apparently dead; terrified of having caused his death and afraid to leave any evidence, the young postman has no choice, so it seems, but to grab up the package and escape back home where he spills out the rather unbelievable story to his school teacher husband.

      Teemu, however—as his mother declares—as grown so bourgeois, perhaps in reaction to his own liberal upbringing, demands his lover go to the police and explain the situation. But with the money in hand and a dead man in the yard, Ruben is rightfully assured that they will have no choice but to insist that he has killed him. An argument follows which ends by Teemu demanding Ruben leave his home and their relationship end.

     Without even time to think things out, Ruben grabs up three suitcases and clothes and the package of Euros and heads back, sick to his stomach, to his family just in time for the Passover celebration.

 

   We soon discover seemingly endless reasons for Ruben’s consternation. In Paris his luggage does not show up on the baggage carousel, and terrified that the authorities have discovered the money, he is forced to tell his waiting family that his luggage has been temporarily lost. That family itself, as I have already hinted, is a force to be reckoned with: his mother Rachel (played by the noted Spanish actor Carmen Maura, perhaps most famous for her anguished role in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pepa in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), is the controlling center of this coven who have made most of their money from the dry-cleaning business. She is only too happy to see her weak and underweight boy return home, praying that he has broken up with his hard-hearted “Swede.” Ruben’s sister, Irène (Amira Casar) immediately whispers into his ear that she is secretly about to break up with her husband, Hervé (Charlie Dupont), an out-of-work goy who Ruben’s contentious family have never forgiven for having married their Jewish daughter. Ruben’s handsome but also highly religious and slightly homophobic brother Samuel (Clément Sibony) has already told his slightly obnoxious son who wants to grow up to become a rabbi that Ruben has returned just to “stir up the shit.” And that’s just for starters.

     Over the next couple of days Ruben discovers that his father (Jean-Francois Stevenin), as he admits for the first time to any family member, has been seeing another woman for several years and now wants Ruben to meet his mistress. To escape his family, Ruben visits a local gay club, bedecked for Passover with an “Out of Egypt” theme, only to discover among the dancers the respected lawyer and respected family friend Maurice Goldberg (Jean-Luc Bideau), who is so excited to encounter “fresh meat” that he quite literally pulls Ruben home and into his bed, determining that now that Ruben has left Finland they will be become lovers.

      A great deal of the film is spent in Ruben’s attempts to escape his randy would-be elder lover, visits Ruben at home where he attempts to kiss him in from his his mother, and later is indirectly responsible for destroying the car Ruben has borrowed from his brother. Later, Goldberg further bollixes up his Finland romance as well.

      A drunken Teemu, meanwhile, falls into bed with an old classmate, now a friendly forest ranger (Olavi Uusirvita), and finally discovers that old Tilikainen is not only still alive but that he did not want to accept the money because it was secretly saved by his now dead wife having caused a greedy family free-for-all amongst his own kids.

      Teemu gets on a plane to Paris to make it up with Ruben at the very moment that Hevré throws his wife Irène out of the house, leading the macho Samuel to attempt to not only personally snip

off his foreskin but to castrate the goy. The father and both his sons end up, predictably, in jail just at the moment that Teemu shows up at the house wherein Rachel is spilling out her sorrows to Goldberg, the latter of whom tells the Finn to go back home since he and Ruben have now hooked up.

     Somehow, in the midst of these and numerous other extraneous Saturday Night Live-like skits, Ruben gets word to Teemu of his real love for him, his suitcases (money intact) are delivered to the family house, and the dueling trio of musketeers are freed. Teemu returns for a late Passover celebration, and, finally introduced to this zany family, is made to feel welcome as the only remaining evidence of true and faithful love.

     Obviously in such a busy farce, not every comic moment works, and after a while the viewer wishes, just like Ruben, for a well-deserved rest, maybe even a little nap. But who can complain ultimately about such a totally accepting movie that features the daily failures and tiny triumphs of human beings as represented by Ruben’s hot-headed and Teemu’s cool families. Perhaps the Paris folk might try out a whipping themselves in a sauna once in a while to let it all out, and Teemu might come back to Paris on occasion just to warm up in the ridiculousness of such spirited family love.

 

Los Angeles, June 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).

Douglas Messerli | The Dangers of the Male Touch: Harold Lloyd Becomes Macho [Introduction]

the dangers of the male touch: harold lloyd becomes macho 

by Douglas Messerli

Although in Harold Lloyd films there are some occasions, as I have registered throughout these pages, of him crossdressing, and several instances of his being mistaken for a homosexual, in the end there is something almost homophobic about Lloyd’s films. 

     Perhaps because he is generally characterized as a weak and wimpish figure while still determined to get the film’s heroine, the writers generally go out of their way to prove Lloyd is a man in the most stereotypical of ways presenting pejorative attitudes toward sissy boys and gay men. Even touching another man is perceived as dangerous territory in his films. And manhood is defined by violent and bully-like behavior, which for much of the film is dished out to Lloyd himself before he proves that he can be just as violent and capable of bullying.

     In connection to these issues, I discuss three of Lloyd’s films, A Sailor-Made Man (1921), Grandma’s Boy (1922), and The Kid Brother (1927).

 

Los Angeles, June 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2024).

Ted Wilde, J. A. Howe, Lewis Milestone, and Harold Lloyd | The Kid Brother / 1927

coming in contact with male flesh 

Howard J. Green (screenplay), Ted Wilde, J. A. Howe, Lewis Milestone, and Harold Lloyd (directors) The Kid Brother / 1927

 

      Something similar to what occurs to the central character in Harold Lloyd’s Grandma’s Boy (1922) occurs also to Lloyd’s character in The Kid Brother (1927), directed by the team of Ted Wilde, J. A., Lewis Milestone, and Lloyd himself. As early gay film commentator Vito Russo points out, when a local medicine show burns down, leaving his new girlfriend Mary with nowhere to go, Harold invites her to spend the night in the home he shares with his father, the town Sheriff, and his brothers. Before she can get settled down, however, the wife of the man who has accidently set the show on fire shows up and takes Mary with her, feeling it inappropriate for Mary to be left for the night in a house with only males.

     Harold’s macho brothers, Leo and Olin, thinking that she is still there, sleeping behind a curtain, as Russo describes it “take turns reaching through to pat her hand, making increasingly bold advances until they discover that it is the sleeping Lloyd they have been fondling, not the woman.” As in Grandma’s Boy Harold takes a beating for their having even accidently come in contact with male flesh.

     The film ends, moreover, with Harold capturing a thief, saving the others of his family, and beating up his nemesis to prove he is “a real Hickory,” like his father and brothers, a strong masculine man.

 

Los Angeles, July 17, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2022).

Fred C. Newmeyer | Grandma's Boy / 1922

granny’s advice in how to turn a queer wimp into a man

by Douglas Messerli

 

Hal Roach, Sam Taylor, Jean Havez, and H.M. Walker (screenplay), Fred C. Newmeyer (director) Grandma’s Boy / 1922

       

Fred C. Newmeyer’s Grandma’s Boy with Harold Lloyd is often lauded as one of the early pioneer full-length comedies which successfully combined gags and coherent narrative. It was a big success in its day, and remains one of Lloyd’s most popular works even today.

      The story of a weak and cowardly young man bullied from childhood into his young adulthood—still today one of the stereotyped patterns of a gay boy—is repeated in the first third of the film as Grandma’s Boy (a variation of the usual Boy which Lloyd long portrayed), attempts to court His Girl (Mildred Davis), despite the numerous difficulties of his outdated and cheap suits provided by Grandma (Anna Townsend), his general shyness and clumsy nervousness, and the endless evil machinations of His Rival (Charles Stevenson), who generally pushes him out of the way, steals any evidence of good intentions to the girl or her mother, and tosses the Boy into a well.

     Upon a second visit to the Girl, this time having replaced his shrunken suit with one of his grandfather’s articles of clothing that Grandma has kept from the 1860s, the terrified Boy battles moth balls buried deep without his suit coat, kittens attracted to the guava paste jam with which Grandma has shined his shoes, and the general thrashings of the Rival, particularly after the two run into the kitchen to wash out their mouths after having consumed some of the moth balls the Boy has tossed into the Girl’s box of candy. 

      But the film shifts significantly when men arrive to report that a drifter (named in the film as "The Rolling Stone," played by Dick Sutherland), has been seen robbing a store and has shot a townsman attempting to detain the criminal. The whole town is in an uproar, as the Girl’s father, first the Rival, and, then the Boy are made into Deputy Sheriffs, required now to join the fray of finding the thief and murderer.

      The Boy, returning to retrieve his hat, misses the car to the event and is forced to stumble by himself, but can get no further than the barn where, in the dark, he is terrified by chickens, a horse, a pig, and a harness that falls upon him in his clumsy maneuvers to escape the animal outrage. By the time he’s finished in the barn he is so frightened that he races back home, pulling chairs, sideboards, and tables against the door as he retreats under of the covers of his bed.

       By morning, he is embarrassed by a timidity that has now reached the level of pure cowardice as he explains in tears to his beloved grandmother. She, in turn, tells a tale about his Grandfather (also played by Lloyd) who similarly appeared to himself as a coward in the Civil War. Having been sent to get Yankee secrets, the young Confederate soldier is terrified of even getting near the enemy, but now finds himself strangely at the very headquarters of the Yankee leaders.

      A gypsy woman provides him with a special token that she insists if he carry with him will protect him, and the young Rebel is suddenly able to make his way indoors, overhear the Yankee battle plans and steal the secret document by serving up a potent alcoholic drink to the soldiers. He wins the day and is rewarded by his Rebel leaders when they arrive to find everyone passed out.

      Granny, to help her grandson find his own mojo, presents him with just such a token. And the last third of the film is devoted to a hilarious series of events where the Boy joins the other members of the city posse held up in a gun battle with the violent villain just outside of town.

      Amazingly the Boy is able to enter the cabin and knock out “The Rolling Stone,” but when he comes to the others race off again in terror, and it is left up to the Boy to chase down the thief once more, and then a third time, finally bringing him to town and justice in a baby pram.

      All the girls now have fallen in love with the Boy, and His Girl is ready to flirt when, once more, the Rival shows up, this time the Boy ready to take him on. A seemingly never-ending brawl takes place, as the two roll about the barn and fields before the Boy, losing and then rediscovering his magic charm, finally is able to deliver his Rival into the well, demand the Girl’s love, and win her assurances that she will marry him. Grandma explains that the lucky charm is really just the handle to her umbrella, lying simply to help her grandson realize his own innate powers.

     Everything ends in a happy heterosexual marriage destined, so we perceive, all along—despite the Boy’s and our own suspicions of his being a homo weakling. I presume that this is the reason—along with the male hand-holding scene, when the Boy and his Rival hold hands behind the Girl’s back, each thinking that the other’s hand was that of the Girl’s—that Grandma’s Boy is listed in most LGBTQ compilations.

     Let me suggest that if it remains on those lists it should be read as a warning not a recommendation. The film may be charming if you believe that it is necessary to find a way for a “meek, modest and retiring youth,” whose “boldest moment is singing out loud in church”—in other words, a queer boy who everyone except his grandmother in the film mock—should naturally seek to marry a flirtatious and rather blind young girl who is equally interested in the school bully. It is a delightfully comedic work only if you think that everyone has the right and does carry a weapon and shoots on first sight; that homeless men should immediately be shooed off; that a posse is necessary to scare of such a terrifying threat; and that, most importantly, the best thing possible for a young timid man is that he capture a criminal and himself become a bully to prove his worth to a girl who he can now demand that she love and marry him.

      This is a lovely movie for all who believe that Grandmas should encourage their men into civil war, mature into violence, and lock themselves away in heterosexual marriage in small town USA.

      I’m sorry, but I think for a more encouraging LGBTQ message I’ll look elsewhere.

 

Los Angeles, July 15, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2022).