Judhajit Bagchi and Ranadeep Bhattacharyya | Amen / 2010

it’s just a phase

by Douglas Messerli

 

Judhajit Bagchi and Ranadeep Bhattacharyya (screenwriters and directors) Amen / 2010 [24 minutes]

 

The beautiful Andy (Jitin Gulati) shows up at Harry’s (Karanveer Mehra) door, the two evidently having made a cellphone connection for gay sex. But even as he enters Harry’s charming bungalow surrounded by plants, Andy is on the phone with his fiancée Tina, creating a kind of strange antiphon as he attempts to answer questions simultaneously from both Tina and Harry. Andy claims to be in the office, while having to introduce himself to Harry and engage in the polite preliminaries of pre-sex while attentively listening to her prattle about her purchases of the day, including having bought a pink shirt for him, which he declares is a feminine color. He asks Harry where the bed is while telling Tina, apparently for the first time, that he loves her. When Tina declares he’s bought something for herself as well, at the same instant Harry hands him some water, so that it appears Andy’s query about Tina’s purchase is “water?

     It’s clear, accordingly, from the first moment of this film that something is terribly amiss. And when Harry finally hangs up from Tina, he immediately strips and almost attacks Harry as they passionately kiss, Harry quickly pulling out a condom, while Harry reminds him that the one thing he doesn’t do is get fucked.

      Andy seems to determined to ignore his protests and, in effect, to rape him, until finally Harry pushes him off, Andy becoming furious for the fact, insisting that he has wasted the entire time with him. “Fucking useless,” he screams as he stands and begins to dress. Again Andy reminds him that he was clear on his profile that he doesn’t participate in anal sex. When he was a child his grandfather abused him, and he still recalls the endless bleeding.

      But Andy has utterly no empathy for him, and when Harry asks, somewhat naively, if they might meet again, Harry almost violently turns on him declaring that there is no more time for men. And in any event he will never meet up again with him, he scoffs.

      “Tomorrow is my engagement,” he angrily declares. “And this was my last chance. You fucking wasted my time.”

      Harry responds in the most honest way possible: “And what about wasting a girl’s life? I hate pretentious guys like you…”gays” like you.”

      Calling Andy gay results in a violent outburst as Andy begins to throw Harry’s possessions to the floor, cutting himself in the process, as he moves forward to pummel Harry as well. The fury is intense, while he shouts, “Who told you I was gay. I’m not like you…faggot! You bloody

cocksucker. How dare you!”

      So begins the most intense portrayal of the “I’m not gay syndrome” perhaps ever filmed, when, after partially beating Harry, Andy falls to the floor in a fit of overacting so extreme that you might imagine that the actor had studied “method” acting under the tutelage of a Bollywood queen.

      One nonetheless sympathizes for his frenzied breakdown. After all, anyone who can even half-credibly howl out “My urge to sleep with men does not make me gay” ought to receive some sort of consolation.

      Nonetheless, Andy seems to have had a great many male sex partners over the years—although in another zinger, after Harry asks if he enjoys sex with girls equally, Andy nonchalantly replies that he does not believe in premarital sex. “You mean with ‘girls,’” Harry jabs back.

     Slowly Harry talks his aggressor down from his heighted emotional hysteria based on his beliefs that gays are different, proving through his own tender ministrations of Andy’s bloody hand and intelligent his questions and probing comments that in fact, there is not so much difference between the two of them after all.

      The heart of this film is the short course that Harry provides on “the gay experience 101,” asking the basic questions such as “When did you know you were first attracted to men?” and “What does if feel like when you see an attractive man?” Similarly, he explains that gay men also desire relationships, that most gay men have little in common with the stereotypes shown on TV and in the movies. And finally, Harry explains the obvious, that “life does not let you choose your parents or your sexuality.” Most important, he argues that in going ahead with his marriage, as a gay man—whether or not he denies it or pretends that it is “just a phase”—Andy is not only “wasting someone’s life and, in the bargain, spoiling his own life as well.”

      Would every man on the eve of his wedding have someone like Harry around to let him know, if nothing else, just how destructive is his inability to describe himself a gay—or queer or being homosexual, or even full admitting to others that he enjoys sex with his own gender.

      Andy also challenges Harry to stop carrying around his childhood terror of his grandfather’s abuse and his fears of anal bleeding, and to embrace his sexual pleasures fully.

      Yet Harry leaves, hurrying off to his Tina, seemingly as if his intense conversation with Harry has meant nothing.

      This is, one must remember a movie embracing gay life in an India where being gay was still illegal. In 2009, the Delhi High Court found (in the case of the Naz Foundation vs. the government of NCT of Delhi) that section 377 (which declared carnal intercourse with any man, woman or animal, against the order of nature, and punishable with life imprisonment) to be a direct violation of the fundament rights provided by the Indian Constitution. But in 2012 the Ministry of Home Affairs declared an open opposition to the decimalization of homosexual activity, only to have that view gain reversed by the Central Indian Government.

     In fact, July 2, the date of the 2009 decision, is generally celebrated throughout India as “Indian Coming Out Day.” Yet as late as 2013, the Supreme Court set aside the 2009 decision. And Section 377 was not repealed until 2015.

     In 2010, accordingly, when this brave movie was released it was meg with a great deal of controversy and was almost denied a certificate by the Film Review Committee permitting its release.

      Is it any wonder, accordingly, that directors Judhajit Bagchi and Ranadeep Bhattacharyya chose a happy ending for over what would have been a far more realistic one. In the film, after a short period, Andy returns to Harry, presumably after admitting to his fiancée and his family, his sexuality. He does say as much, but it is clear that he is now committed to a relationship with Harry, and will likely become the Mr. Right that Harry has told him that he hoped in might find in all of his random sexual meetups.

     This film, in short, like many other Indian gay films still today such as My Gay Cousin of 2023, which I watched the other afternoon, serve still primarily a gay propaganda, devoted to the acceptance of Indian culture of gays and their relationships. But there is a vast difference in the narrative, cinematic skills, and intelligent, if rather unbelievable, acting of a film such as Amen, which won several awards upon its release, and a primitive, but well-meaning work such as My Gay Cousin—even if their goals are similar. And despite its over-acting and simplicity of its issues, Amen is an important movie.

 *For a fuller discussion of these events, see my essay on Sridhar Rangayan’s Breaking Free (2015).

Los Angeles, September 26, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).

Florina Titz and Marian Adochitei | Orange/Milk / 2010

obsessions

by Douglas Messerli

 

Laura Iancu and Florina Titz (screenplay), Florina Titz and Marian Adochitei (directors) Orange / Milk / 2010 [20 minutes]

 

Damian (Adrian Draganescu/George Foca, young and old) emails Alex (Cosmin Dragomir/Alex Ilascu), telling him that he’s at his beach house doing “the same old arrogant and pretentious stuff,” and wonders if he might visit him. The two, close friends from childhood, obviously have had a rupture, and Damian is determined to mend it if possible.

    “The pretentious stuff” of which Damian writes is simply his gardening, as we are shown clips of him in his quite beautifully flowering garden. Words like “arrogant” and “pretentious” are code words for the two, we soon learn, along with anything and everything that might be perceived of as ordinary and bourgeoise, which these two in their filmed observations of the world seem to define almost all they witness outside of their own voyeuristic lives.

     As we move back and forth in time through the numerous tapes and videos they’ve made over the years as friends, spying on their neighbors through telescopes, binoculars, and most importantly the camera lens as well as other “espionage” tools, we perceive that Alex evidently grew tired of gazing at a world that the two boys, first as children and then as young adults, constantly dismissed as beneath their standards—although what values they are committed to is not truly established. The two young men seem to share a mutual close friendship with a woman, Rebecca (Beti Fotu) in a manner that might remind one of François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (1962).

      In his messages to Alex, Damian seems to still perceive his friend’s leaving as a “cruel disappearance,” almost as if it had no significance or evident reason. And clearly, despite his rather upscale home life, the fact that he apparently has a job which can pay for all of his “spy cameras,” toast and honey, fresh oranges and milk, and a beachside house with lovely flowers, Damian continues to treat the outside world as a voyeur, perceiving himself as its interpreter and judge.

      As we observe his messages, we see the handsome Alex speeding toward him in his new car, obviously having taken up his offer to visit. As Alex arrives, we see Damian rise with joyful anticipation. But we do not get to know them through their new encounter as much as we do from their collection of old videos and tapes, from childhood forward. We do get occasional calls from Alex’s current female friend, to whom he verbally messages that he’s readjusting to Damian, who, he explains is even less talkative than before.

     So we realize we should not look for long revelatory conversations, but instead watch for brief instances between clips of people who have absolutely nothing to do with the narrative. We must discover the lives of our characters from how they view the “other,” “outside” world which they often dismiss.

     These men are queer, we can only conjecture, not necessarily because of their mutual love for one another—which seems to be apparent—but from their view of the world as outsiders, with them strangely being alone and protected in an imaginary “inside” in which they together exist.

     That inner world is really quite lovely, as Damian makes a full breakfast with freshly made orange juice to his handsome friend. The outside world is fuzzy, grainy, filled with poorly dressed and overweight individuals as they listen with headphones in on their chattering, nattering, quite meaningless existences.

     As they sit far above, with their binoculars and photo-lens they might seem to be scanning the beach below for beautiful bodies; but, in fact, the seem to be seeking out the ugly, the bourgeoise, the purposely vacant vacationers one finds on such beaches. Their own lives, meanwhile, are presented among the flowers as almost perfect, framed by plants, flower blossoms, and good food, the space crowded with their beautiful trimmed bodies; and the film alternates, accordingly, with stunningly colorful scenes and the grainy, grayish, often almost colorless images of their films and photographs. Whatever happened to these two young men to yoke them into this shared narcissistic view of the rupture between themselves and the rest of the world is clearly a phenomenon with which Alex has finally become fed up, although seemingly willing to take it up momentarily again to regain his friend’s confidence and trust. 

     But then there is some evidence that it has to do with the Romanian Communist world out of which they have come. As they purchase a small flowering plant in a smart-looking plant store, the cashier can hardly be bothered by their purchase from eating her apple and reading her newspaper; Damian takes a snapshot of her as he leaves the place.

     As they walk jauntily home, directors Florina Titz and Marian Adochitei interleave a clip from the two boys as pre-pubescents walking along a similar path with a kite in hand, one of them reaching to the tree above to bring a blossom to his nose. In short, these two might almost be said to represent to new Romanian elite, technologically savvy and disdaining the old and dowdy Romania of the past. 

     Damian’s lovely bedroom is filled with old photos of just such a world, of fat men on flatboards and women with bad hairdos and outrageously outdated clothes.

     At this point we also begin to hear the reasons for Alex’s having left, which given what we have seen of Damian, makes perfect sense: “Now I have to leave you, my friend. Because I need to do something else, something more interesting than looking with (unfounded) arrogance at people with less luck, money, and education (but they all have a lot more savoir de vivre, after all, no?) Something more interesting like women, gardening, or walking.”

     If Damian has not changed since Alex’s “cruel disappearance,” we must ask, why has Alex returned. As they retreat seemingly into that previous world, the viewer becomes more and more perplexed. What keeps Damian there with a friend who seems to be trapped into his childhood obsessions?

     But things have subtly changed, Damian spends far more time filming his sleeping friend than observing a woman on the street wearing a halter which, as he cattily describes it, is meant to “undermine the masses.” And gradually leafing through the piles of old videos of the two boys and further revelations about their long friendship, we begin to perceive that, as we should have guessed, there is far more to their queer relationship.

     When we almost feel that Alex has once more tired of his friend’s silent removal from the world, they sit at their wall over the beach, the crowds having left. Damian turns the camera once again towards Alex, but he calmly pushes if off, reaching out with his hand to touch Damian’s chin and bring his face toward his lips, as the two engage in a long and sexy series of deep kisses—interleaved with an old tape of them as boys, Alex demanding of the other to turn off the camera—as Titz and Adochitei’s camera remains firmly rooted in place to watch the sensuous reconfirmation of the two men’s sexual desire and love. Far deeper than their obsession for watching others, apparently, is their obsession for one another.

      This short film written directed by women is nearly as slow and ruminative as the feature films of the Romanian New Wave by Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, Radu Jude, Florin Șerban and others, and just as carefully crafted and visually rewarding.

 

Los Angeles, May 15, 2023 / Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).

Marco Berger | Platro (Platero) / 2010

sex around the house

by Douglas Messerli

 

Marco Berger (screenwriter and director) Platro (Platero) / 2010 [14 minutes]

 

Released as one of five sex-related films by Argentinian directors in 2010 as Cinco, Marco Berger’s Platero concerns a backyard picnic which the adolescent Walter’s (Julio Graham) two sexy teenage sisters Analía (Melanie Braggio Mejuto) and Carla (Ayelen Berger) are throwing a backyard party for boyfriends Platro (Mariano Contreras), Esteban (Matheo Chirano), and Marcel (Víctor Anelli). The day is hot and all the partyers are fairly undressed, splashing around a small portable backyard pool.

     Although the parents are home and, at one point, even invite those who are present to the table, they seem to be quite oblivious or perhaps even approving of all the sexual activity going on around them.

     Early in the film, Carla, flirting with her brother, pulls down his swim suit, wondering what he has in there, chasing him into and through the house, the two ending up running after one another around the table while the father (Luis Mango) attempts to read the newspaper. He finally calls for them to stop only because, presumably, he can’t concentrate on his reading.

     The mother (Dolores Cano) announces that it’s time for lunch and demands Walter call in Analía from the backyard where she’s busily engaged in a long, hot kissing session with her boyfriend Platro.

       What’s been clear from the start is that Walter in highly interested in the boys, most particularly Platro. And instead of announcing lunch to his sister, bends down behind a plant to more closely observe his sister’s hot boyfriend, after whom it’s clear he lusts.

       Carla meanwhile greets her boyfriend Marcelo at the door accompanied by his friend Esteban. In this oddly and openly sexual film, one can only wonder why Marcelo has brought along Esteban and what their relationship consists of, since the cute Esteban seems always to be watching Marcelo and Carlo as they engage in kisses and, later, swimming games. But then, this is a world in which all the young people are half-naked and sweaty, clearly seeking out some sexual release.

       Finally, Walter calls out to Analía to tell her lunch is ready, as she prepares to end her deep kissing with Platro, the latter of who bows out of joining her immediately at the table because he has a hardon.

 

       Carla is in her bedroom making out with Marcelo as Esteban lies in the a nearby bed playing with his cellphone, perhaps recording their love-making. All we know is that when Marcelo gets up to go to the bathroom, Carla immediately moves over to Esteban to demand to see whatever he’s looking at on the cellphone. He attempts to catch a kiss from her, which she rejects.

       Walter approaches Platro, who says he’ll be ready in a moment to join them, but the young boy announces that “the food’s not worth dick,” being just yesterday’s leftovers. But Platro declares he’ll eat anything. He appears to be hungry; so is Walter, but in a very different way.

       The mother demands that Carla and Walter quickly set the table before dinner gets cold, even though reminds her it’s just cold cuts, she emphatically noting, “and French fries!”

        Over desert, Analía announces that she finds models to be dumb and dreams of becoming a “TV presenter, or something like that.”

        After lunch, the three boys try to get the innocent and perhaps a bit mentally challenged Walter high on pot.

        The father falls to sleep, and Analía brings Platro into her bed upstairs, where Walter soon joins them in a nearby bed after being tossed into their little pool by Carla’s Marcel and his friend Esteban, who laughs a lot like a donkey. Indeed, the two boys sit near the pool, a bit like lovers, Marcel grabbing Esteban’s knee with great pleasure after playing their asinine trick on Carla’s brother.

       It is Platro with whom Walter is enchanted. Watching his sister cuddle with him while he pretends to nap in a nearby bunkbed. Analía sees him watching them and expresses her worry to Platro that he isn’t asleep, he jokingly suggesting that they invite him down to join them. The sister reacts to Platro, “It’s all the same to you, right? You’ll bang anything.”

       “Do you like my brother?” she continues, Walter’s eyes lighting up with the possibility. When he doesn’t answer, she pushes further, “Answer me, do you like my brother, you faggot?” Walter doesn’t dare even move.

        Platro only pulls her nearer suggesting that she should get some sleep.

        Downstairs, Esteban watches closely as Marcelo and Carlo make out.

       Back upstairs, Ani is attempting to suck Platro off, but a call from downstairs interrupts her at the moment when Platro is clearly getting close to ejaculation.

     She leaves his side. Walter’s eyes open widely, having now certainly considered carefully his sister’s comments. Seizing his chance, Walter hops of out of bed and standing near Platro whispers his name several times before Platro finally turns over, demanding to know what he wants.

        Faced with the tone of the responder, Walter answers “nothing,” and quickly climbs back into his own bed, obviously disappointed once again. On this hot, sweaty day, he still has no one to love. But with the braying Esteban and the well-hung Platro waiting in the bed below, we know that somewhere a friendly donkey in the tradition of Spanish writer Juan Ramon Jiménez’s great poetic narrative, Platero y Yo, exists in that house. Had Walter been able to express his desires, perhaps the now highly frustrated Platro might have quickly invited him into his bed.

        Never has a more brilliant picture of gay sexual frustration in the midst of heterosexual lust been brought to film. This, his fourth film, demonstrates Berger’s subtle exploration of gay sexuality, often frustrated or circumvented through external circumstance.

 

Los Angeles, October 21, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October 2023).

Roberto F. Canuto | Siempre Toto (Toto Forever) / 2010

the postman who delivered his own life

by Douglas Messerli

 

Roberto F. Canuto and Xiaoxi Xu (screenplay), Roberto F. Canuto (director) Siempre Toto (Toto Forever) / 2010 [14 minutes]

 

This Spanish and US co-production, directed by Roberto F. Canuto as a graduation project at the New York Film Academy at Universal Studios, Los Angeles, was clearly meant to be an enticement for a longer feature film project which never occurred. Canuto himself observes that he created the characters almost as symbolic figures representing “the different stages of the society, or at least the society that surrounded the gay individuals.” Instead of concentrating on plot or character development, he focused on “feelings and emotions,” using plot to reveal “a wide range of emotions in a short period of time.”

     The film, accordingly, is shot out of sequence, as we begin the movie in media res on a sort of road adventure as the two central figures, Toto (Kylan James) and the heavily-wounded Mark (Kjord Davis) are in flight, although we discover from what they are fleeing only in flashbacks.

     We quickly perceive that Toto was a former mailman who simply delivered a package to Mark’s residence. Observing blood on the door handle, he entered the house uninvited, already prepared, it appears, to leap into another world with a different persona. By the pool, he found the handsome Mark, dressed only in a bikini, near death after having been beaten. As Toto bent to tend to his bloodied face, Mark told young man to go away and leave him alone.

      Yet later, we see Toto still there, ministering to Mark’s wounds. Mark is appreciative of the boy’s care, but warns him to leave immediately or he too will be subject to violence. Almost before he can finish the sentence the gangster (Alex Aguila) arrives demanding money. We never learn what kind of trouble Mark is in, but it is clearly serious since he is warned that he will die if he doesn’t deliver the money within a short period of time. To make sure that his message is properly understood, the mafioso figure once more beats Mark as Toto hides outside near the pool.

      Presumably, it was that last visitation that resulted in their travel. And as we return to the road scene, where Mark has stopped to rest before continuing his driving, we observe that the two males have already established a close sexual bond. Soon after, in a small hotel room, they make passionate love.

       Somehow the mafia hit man has found them, however, breaking down the door and shooting Mark dead, leaving Toto perhaps with some wounds but, far more seriously, with psychological problems. In the last scene, his nurse (Diana Grivas) finally observes him slightly smiling, with what he himself describes as a sense of “hope” that will help his get over the traumatic affair.

        The short scenes are presented might almost as Chinese opera-like representations wherein friezes and tableau call up the whole history of the genre in literature and culture. Indeed, Xiaoxi Xu co-wrote this work with Canuto, and would become Canuto’s partner for the many films that followed under the couple’s Almost Red Productions, often involving Chinese situations, stories, and cast such as Ni Jing: Thou Shall Not Steal (2013), Floating Melon (2015), Invisible Chengdu (2017), and Sunken Plum (2017).

       Premiering at the Kashish 1st Mumbai International Film Festival, Toto Forever, appeared in festivals throughout the world and is now considered a gay cult classic.

 

Los Angeles, April 16, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).