pretty young things
by Douglas Messerli
Jacob Brown (screenwriter and director) Blinders / 2011 [10 minutes]
Jacob Brown’s short film Blinders is a short
film seemingly itself affected by its central metaphor. It pretends complexity
and applies an often-expressed trope that doesn’t even explore its own
possibilities.
A couple
(Nathaniel Brown and Byrdie Bell) attend a local bell where their eyes both
take in the beauties of a local. almost transsexual boy beauty (Luke Worall).
Although
the couple returns home for sex, it’s clear that the male is totally attracted
to the boy, and soon after we see the two engaged in homosexual sex. Can Brown
return to his Juliet after his clear homosexual transgression?
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The
intruding boy himself describes the situation in terms of the horses of Central
Park, which are led on through life to play out their role with blinders,
unable to change course, which, if nothing else suggests that he sees his young
momentary Romeo as someone who will not be able to alter the sexual course of
normality.
One
might have thought this short work would have explored the possibilities of
bisexuality, but it is far more interested in its quite pretty images and
sexual quirks than actually dealing the issues of sexuality about which it
hints.
And in
the end, there’s little chance that the “romance” of this film will provide
anyone with anything but a one-night stand.
Sorry,
but this film is just fluff. And one doesn’t get truly excited by anything
going on in the movie unless you can’t control yourself over seeing pretty
young things.
Los Angeles, November 3, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (November
2024).
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