illegal love
by Douglas
Messerli
James Bolton
(screenwriter and director) Eban and Charley / 2000
We should have
known. Even 24 years ago in 2000, critics had already become nervous. How dare
a director present such a controversial subject in a film without making the
obvious and necessary viewpoint clear: indicating that he totally disapproves
of the pedophilic actions of his character Eban. As John Anderson, writing in Newsday put it quite
straight-forwardly: “There's not enough judgment being rendered by the
filmmaker, who seems happy enough to portray his movie's relationship
sympathetically because, after all, these things happen.” In other words,
director James Bolton should have taken a totally negative approach to his own story,
immediately damning the character he has created precisely in order to question
the general societal values.
.png)
How a subject which you daren’t even speak
about might be “boring” I cannot comprehend. If nothing else such a forbidden
subject might give some a secret thrill if not the inevitable chill.
But, yes, Bolton’s film is slow moving, just
as are his central characters, Eban (Brent Fellows) and Charley (Giovanni
Andrade, also known as Gio Black Peter). They are both children, and act and
behave as children, spontaneously and without deep thought and rumination. They
come together slowly because, at first, they have no plans or preconceptions.
Perhaps only Eban hints at a slow stalking of the beautiful boy he first spots
in a second-hand record shop of Seaside, Washington. But even that is based on
happenstance. When he runs into him again at a small coffee house, he shares a
table with him only for a few moments. And it is not until he meets up, again
by accident, on the small town’s boardwalk that the two really strike up a
friendship.
Things move slow, in part, because
despite Eban’s eagerness to make Charley’s acquaintance, he is afraid to
proceed. And even when the two begin spending time together, Eban attempts to
define limits to their relationship, having just been fired as a soccer coach
from school where he was teaching in Seattle on account of another
inappropriate relationship he had developed with one of his students.
Eban, age 29, has returned to his
hometown of Seaside supposedly as a Christmas visit. But in actuality, it is an
attempt to get his life back in order, to reassess his possibilities for a new
future without the boy he very much loved.
The central problem is that Eban has
been deadened by his family. Both mother and father are cold and reclusive
beings. Although his mother is clearly joyful for his return, she is able to
show little emotion, and the father, who, unbeknownst to Charley, has been told
of Charley’s behavior by the school principal, is almost hostile to his own
son. He hardly speaks except to criticize his son’s lack of communication with
them, and clearly has no room in his heart for a 29-year-old failure who might
have been arrested and jailed were it not for the school’s attempt to keep
things undercover by simply releasing Eban from his contract and insisting that
he no longer see his student lover.
.png)
When Eban first encounters Charley, the boy
is just 14, but soon after turns 15.* The age of sexual consent in the state of
Washington is 16, meaning that Charley is a full year away from the magical age
when he might legally be perceived aware enough to make a decision about who he
loves by himself. We cannot ignore the fact, moreover, that he has previously
been living with his loving mother who was deaf and had long ago separated from
her husband. The mother has died after being hit in a crosswalk by a drunken
driver, after which Charles has been shipped off to a reluctant father who has
apparently had no interest in him for years, and who, when he finally discovers
that his son is gay and, even worse, has become involved with someone older, is
immediately prepared to ship Charley off to his Charleston, South Carolina
grandparents who are evidently hard-hearted folk since the father is sure they
will “shape him up.” Moreover, he threatens Charley with a psychiatrist (read a
person who is likely to send him to a “conversion camp”).
Charley, as do many disenchanted gay boys his
age, is learning how to play the guitar; he too writes poetry, and in his room
he worships a world lit by candlelight instead of the cold sunlight that seemingly
freezes the heart of most of the town’s residents.
.png)
There is little other to their story,
except to carefully watch how their love develops and blooms. They quickly
become so dependent upon one another for emotional support in a world where Eban’s
parents have basically removed themselves from the picture, and where Charley’s
father refuses, at one point, to even buy new shoes for Charley after his
previous pair are stolen by homophobic thugs. The father’s level of concern
extends to the fact that Charley has embarrassed him in front a female guest by
appearing with red nail polish on his fingers. We later discover that he has
stolen the money that Charley’s mother had left him.
.png)
So yes, Bolton is understandably
sympathetic to his characters, who in many ways have no other possibilities of
love, perhaps even recognizing that most of his viewers of this will refuse find
any empathy. Society is convinced at this time in history that children are not
mature enough to properly determine or even comprehend sexuality, and that
anyone older to whom they have become attached is a villain for daring to
return their love.
LGBTQ films have brought up these issues
over the years regularly, and I have discussed some of the problems and the
extreme illogic of the of the various ages of consent internationally and even
in the US, state by state in the next series of essays which follows this one
and elsewhere in later volumes.
Charley has apparently lived for while in
the Netherlands with his mother, and realizes that in Denmark the age of sexual
consent—as it is also in Ireland, Portugal, and other countries—is 15.
I have already stated above what Charley’s
punishment might entail. For Eban, if Charley’s father comes to perceive the
full extent of their relationship, it will be far more serious, with years of
imprisonment—particularly should his other relationship be revealed—along with
a life-long punishment of being named a child-abuser, many of whom cannot even
find a place to live given the restrictions put upon them.
.png)
Bolton may certainly be sympathetic to
the emotional involvement of the boys, but he nonetheless, allows Eban’s father
(Ron Upton) to calmly and quite gently lay out the realities to his adult son,
as he attempts to make it clear that Eban’s love of young boys defines him as a
pedophile and that he if cannot immediately put a stop to his behavior that he
is doomed to a horrific future. He insists that Eban stop seeing Charley, explaining
that if he does not, he himself will turn his son into the police.
Charley has no one to turn to except Eban. And
when Eban finally will not even let him sneak a visit through his bedroom
window, the boy determines to run away from home. We know also where that will
possibly lead: a life on the streets and likely prostitution in order to
survive.
There are no good alternatives in this
world for people like Charley and Eban who have found a love for which the
society has no mercy.
.png)
.png)
We can only imagine the dozens of
possible impediments ahead: Charley’s or Eban’s father need only alert the police.
The couple themselves may look like a suspicious pair to various authorities.
Eban can now be accused of kidnapping if apprehended. If the couple does reach
Denmark, they may be not permitted to remain in the country for any period of
time other than a short visit. Living together, they may find that they are not
truly compatible. Will Charley, as he matures, realize Eban’s failures? And what
will they do for a living, even if Eban were able to find a job without any
recommendations?
Yet their love has compelled them to take
the leap to chance seeking a world which will allow them the simple (but also
so very complex) joy of love.
* In Washington individuals who are 16 or older can
legally engage in sexual activity with other consenting adults, as long as they
are five years or less older than him. However, if the older person is in a
position of authority at the time, such as a teacher or a coach, the age of
consent is raised to 18. Clearly at 29, Eban would have been arrested and
imprisoned for several years for both of his offenses.
Los
Angeles, September 25, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(September 2024).
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
