William Branden Blinn | Truth or Dare / 2014

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Søren Green | En eftermiddag (An Afternoon) / 2014

the go-between

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tomas Lagermand Lundme and Søren Green (screenplay), Søren Green (director), En eftermiddag (An Afternoon) / 2014 [8 minutes]

 

Appearances are everything in the tentative teen world of Danish film director Søren Green’s An Afternoon.

     Mathias (Ulrik Windfeldt-Schmidt), who is clearly in love with the slightly older or, at least, his taller and more mature friend Frederick (Jacob Ottensten) invites himself over to his friend’s house to watch images on his computer. Frederick demonstrates some interesting scenes, mostly daring athletics, as the shyer and younger looking Mathias looks on, but mostly at his friend with nearly cow-eyed admiration, joyful clearly just to be in his presence.

     Things are fine until Frederick receives a text message from a high school girl Cecilie, which immediately begins to bother Mathias, particularly when his friend continues to text her in the middle of their activities.

      Both attempt to return their interest back to the screen, but Mathias can simply not maintain his sense of pleasure since, after a couple of other short clips of leaps and jumps, Frederick shows

him a girl, probing to see if he finds the female “hot.” Mathias, as expected, agrees but declares the video to be so boring, obviously signaling his friend that he’s not interested in girls. Just to check, Frederick asks “You think so?” Mathias responding, “Yes. Do you like it?”

      The two boys are doing what older gay men do it also attempting to determine whether or not an attractive acquaintance is interested in the opposite sex, but in a far more direct and unsophisticated manner, both simply terrified of admitting too much too quickly as to offend the other’s possible heteronormative viewpoint.   

     Frederick doesn’t answer Mathias’ important question and, furthering the hurt, receives another text, apparently from Cecilie. Mathias’ face reveals his disappointment and a bit of bitterness. But at the very same time he cannot resist looking at how perfect his friend’s back meets his thin waist.

     In a few seconds this young actor conveys disappointment, hurt, and love all in brief facial gestures.

     His next question, however, is tossed out almost as a challenge: “Aren’t you going to text her back?” To which Frederick mutters a negative response.

   But then comes the inevitable question, the most important question of all as far as Mathias is concerned: “Are you two together?

      Even his friend’s response of “no,” doesn’t quite reassure him. And Frederick’s secondary response again attempts to protect himself from heteronormative expectations. “Not really.” 

      Disappointed with the following silence, Mathias stands, explaining he has get home for dinner. The afternoon in which both boys were holding their breaths in anticipation for what they hoped to discover has ended once more without resolution.

      Shrugging his shoulders, we see Frederick texting “I don’t think he’s interested.”        

     After a few long moments, the phone sings out a response, “Text him. He’s crazy about you,” with happy-faced emojis. You don’t need me to tell you this film’s ending.

      If Green’s 8-minute short is not profound, it certainly will remind some gay men of their childish endeavors of playing the game of dropping beads. Alas, those of my age usually didn’t have a Cecilie to help them out. Or perhaps, in this case, a girl who unintentionally stood momentarily in their way, since it’s obvious Mathias had confessed his love of Frederick to the same girl, explaining his deep interest in what precisely Frederick’s relationship to her consisted of.  

     But finally, one has to ask, whatever happened to simply reaching out to explore a touch? These boys wait for their phones and computers to tell them the truth.

 

Los Angeles, April 23, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2022).

 

Dave Scala | Grotto / 2013

echo

by Douglas Messerli

 

Dave Scala (screenwriter and director) Grotto / 2013 [7 minutes]

 

This short film by US writer and director Dave Scala, like so many of its kind, is a tease about a young man, in this case Marco (Ben Getz), on the verge of coming out.

      Evidently the 20-year-old boy has returned to his hometown after a year away at college, and in the few moments of the film is being grilled by one of his best friends, Claudia (Lian Amado) about what has been happening in the time when no one has heard from him back home.

      The party is pool-side, but is already sprinkling, and when her friends Manny (JC Casely), Andrea (Daniella Escobio), and Manny’s college buddy, Ben (Adam Jepsen) arrive they complain about the night she has chosen for the party, although Manny seems to be willing to swim as long there is there is no lightning.

      But mostly what the group seem most interested in is quickly downing the bottles of beer Manny has brought along. Ben, slightly older than the others, strips down for swimming, revealing a nice body as he introduces himself to Marco.

       Marco seems apart, however, no longer truly one of the group. The others finally insist he joins them in a game of “spin-the-bottle,” evidently still a popular game among teens and college kids if the short LGBTQ films I’ve seen are representative.

       Claudia’s spin points at Andrea, who gives her a brief kiss. The bottle then goes to Marco, who attempts to bow out but is dragooned into participating. His bottle spins to the handsome Ben, and for a moment there is the complete silence of anticipation, broken only by a huge crack of lighting and thunder, sending everyone scrambling into the house. That is except Marco and Ben who find themselves in the pool together. As the two make light conversation, Ben moves closer and is about to kiss Marco, when suddenly we hear a voice, “Are you coming out...?”

       Marco is confused, as is the audience. Has he been imagining the encounter between him and Ben. He shakes his head a little, stunned by the realization that he has indeed been fantasizing what he admits verbally, “I have been trying to…..”     

   Ben reaches out his hand to help him, as Marco continues his sentence, “...of the pool?” Marco takes his hand and allows himself to be pulled out, Ben responding with an intense kiss, the other startled by the event. Ben adds, “Well, maybe you should try harder,” as he runs off, calling back, “Come on.”

       I presume the double incident of “coming out”—coming out of the pool and “coming out” sexually in this case—was director Scala’s way of permitting an internal self-realization and acceptance before the real event. And I presume the title hints at the double event that occurs in a grotto, the spoken word and its echo. It seems a bit coy. Why not just get down to business since it has been apparent that something has happened in that year that Marco has been away at school without communicating with his friends.

 

Los Angeles, May 5, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2022).

Giuseppe Bucci | Una note ancora (One More Night) / 2012

staying true to the script

by Douglas Messerli

 

Giuseppe Bucci (screenwriter and director) Una note ancora (One More Night) / 2012 [11 minutes]

 

If theater and role playing is somehow at the heart of Adam Salky’s work, so too are they central to Italian director Giuseppe Bucci’s One More Night.

     It begins melodramatically and remains that almost throughout. A middle-aged man, Paulo (Ivan Bacchi) wakes up alone in bed, his unnamed younger companion, performed by Marco Cacciapuoti, having already risen, removing his ring, and leaving. 

     The movie continues with an immediate flashback to the previous evening, Paulo on his way home from work, having brought a white rose to his younger lover as token of deep love, joyfully traveling through the streets. But when he enters his apartment he is faced with his lover sitting a table writing, his bags packed. He is obviously writing a letter of farewell, and Paulo immediately understands the situation, tossing the rose to the floor and entering the balcony where he remains until the sky turns black. When he returns to the lit up room he declares—almost as the Marschallin might to her lover Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier—“I know, you’re still too young for me…and cannot wait to fly freely.” Still, he wonders if there isn’t anything he can do to keep the boy, reminding him that he said he loved him. When the younger man insists he does still love him, Paulo says, no, “I love you.”

     He looks at the boy’s “sad puppy face,” insisting that it is obvious that the boy can’t wait to leave and “fuck around,” if he hasn’t already.

      Marco returns to the other room, and in a dramatic fashion Paulo follows him, declaring that he had hoped to spend the rest of his life with him, horrified that he’s now he’s leaving!

      The younger man turns to leave, with Paulo holding him back, begging him not to go, as Marco pulls away sending the older man to the floor. Finally in tears, Paulo accepts the younger man’s hand to help him up, pleading for him to spend just one more night.

      It is morning once more, and Paulo awakens to find the boy gone.

      But when he actually rises, the boy is now on the balcony drinking coffee. Paulo joins him and slips several bills to him, the other saying goodbye, and reminding him to call when he needs him again. Incidentally, he interrupts himself, he knows how to play a great many other such games; mightn’t they try a story with another plot? His elder replies no, as the other exits.

      Clearly it has been an act, a drama performed by a prostitute Paulo has hired for the night, having employed him evidently many times previously to perform the same script, based apparently on the real event some time ago.

       Paulo is obviously a man who cannot free himself from his own past, forced to play out again and again the sad leave-taking of his younger lover, he actually aging in the process as the younger lover, in the form of ageless younger actors, never changing. It is a sad playing out of the story of Der Rosenkavalier week after week, year after year, as the elder remains trapped forever, a bit also like Miss Havisham of Great Expectations in a bittersweet past.

     Bucci’s short film played in over 26 LGBTQ festivals, winning several best short movie, director, and acting awards in 2012 and 2013.

 

Los Angeles, June 3, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2022).

 

Pascal-Alex Vincent | En colo (Holiday Camp) / 2010

change of view

by Douglas Messerli

 

Guillaume Nail (screenplay), Pascal-Alex Vincent (director) En colo (Holiday Camp) / 2010 [8 minutes]

 

While perhaps not representing the most exciting example of Pascal-Alex Vincent’s significant oeuvre, the French director’s 2010 short film Holiday Camp does offer up small pleasures, as a group of teens on a holiday retreat attempt to discover more about one another and their hunky camp counselor, Jordan (Alexis Michalik).

     Like young teens everywhere, Mathieu (Paul Perles) suggests they play a game of “Truth or Dare,” daring the two women of their group, Bénédicte (Emylou Brunet) and Muriel (Laura Boujenah) to kiss each other on the lips. They agree only if Mathieu also kisses a boy, not his friend Antoine (Côme Levin), but the quieter peer, who has generally not been participating in the male-oriented games, Maxime (Axel Wursten). There is, of course, the standard grumbling, particularly from Maxime, since it is suddenly to be a contest of duration. Mathieu is quite ready as he not only kisses the other boy longer that the girls remain lip-locked, but, as Antonine comments Mathieu has slipped his tongue into Maxime’s mouth.

     When the others tease Maxime for being disoriented after the kiss, he angrily describes it only as a game and leaves the group, Antoine, in particular, suggesting he may actually be a fag. The game, accordingly, not only disorients Maxime but the group itself who now become somewhat mean in their attempts to actually determine Maxime’s sexuality.

      But things seem to have also changed in other subtle ways. The very next day, when Mathieu tires of wrestling in the pool with Antoine, he attempts to encourage Maxime to join them. When Antoine again challenges him by wondering if he has a hard on, “Could it be that Matt’s got to you?” Maxime answers: “Have you seen yourself jumping all over him? It looks like you’re the one interested.”

      Again Maxime storms off.

      By that evening’s final camp dance, Antoine is truly wondering whether or not Maxime might be “a fag.” One of the girls determines to actually determine the truth through another kind of game. She asks Maxime to dance, leading him into an intense feeling-up session, while Mathieu, watching, does not seem at all amused. When Maxime finally pushes her away for her flirtations, she rushes back to the others to assure them that surely the boy is queer.

     Having observed their actions from behind the bar, Jourdan finally demands to know what they’re doing.

     “Nothing,” answers Antoine. “It’s Maxime—he’s a total fag.”

     “What do you know about that?” asks the elder. “What the hell do you care?

     One of the girls offers up, “It’s fine. So we can have a laugh.”

     “Yeh. What if I told you I’m a fag too? Are you still laughing?”

     “Ah no, but you’re not,” Antoine counters.

     “Why not? Because I don’t look like your idea of a homo?”

     That quiets them all. Would that more such camp counselors existed.

     Mathieu, in particular, looks nonplussed.

     On the bus to leave then next morning, the girls quietly lament that it’s too bad that their handsome stud of a counselor can no longer be the center of their fantasies. But they still want his photo, telling him that he’s so hot.

      Seeing Maxime, Mathieu suggests that he come sit with him.

      Jordan declares it’s now his turn to get a photo of his fellow campers. They crowd in together, but in one frame the camera catches what they cannot see, Matthieu has wrapped his hand around Maxime’s hand. And in the final frame of the film, Matthieu and Maxime are kissing with Antoine finally pointing out the fact.

      Things have definitely changed for these holiday campers.

 

Los Angeles, October 15, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2024).