Dylan and Lazlo Tonk | Uitgesproken (Caged) / 2013

speaking out

by Douglas Messerli

 

Dylan and Lazlo Tonk (screenwriters and directors) Uitgesproken (Caged) / 2013 [14 minutes]

 

 David (Joël Mellenberg) and Niels (Josha Stradowski) are good friends, sportsmen who regularly run together and often play soccer with other boys of their age, like so very many high school or early college students still today, mostly a homophobic lot, led by Bas (Florus Hoogslag).

    When David’s girlfriend, Stella (Yldau de Boer) shows up with Tim (Leendert de Ridder), known by the others to be gay, he is trouble, particular when not only Bas but his equally homophobic girlfriend Angels (Rosa van Iterson) attack the group outsider.

     Subsequently, seeking out Stella, who has left after witnessing the verbal assaults, David tries to understand why she has shown up with Tim, her response being the honest statement: “He’s my friend.” But David can have nothing to do, he declares, with “fags.” When she wonders whether he might not already have been friends with someone gay, he declares he certainly would have been aware the fact. No, his friends aren’t fags, he continues in his homophobic rant. Again she leaves him, demonstrating her inability to deal with that aspect of his personality.

     Soon after, the boys seek out Tim’s bicycle, spray-painting it pink. When Niels protests, David takes the can away from Bas and proceeds to color the bike in an attempt to demean its owner.

     A short while later, David observes his friend Niels talking to Tim, and stays back in the shadows until Tim leaves before joining up with Niels. Nothing is spoken, but in the very next frame, walking with Bas and his other friends David comes across Tim and Niels, in open public, kissing one another. Even while recognizing their presence, the boys continue in their public display, obviously previously arranged to announce their relationship. When a shocked David confronts Niels with his having never spoken the truth, he ends his comments: “I thought we were friends,” with Neil’s responding, “So did I.” Bas warns him to never to again show is face in their territory—however that might be defined.

     Stella describes them as a cute couple, but David is not even ready to do battle. He is troubled and very quiet. This time Stella attempts to confront him, wondering what he is so worried about, particularly in the midst of his silences he approaches her desperately for a kiss, as if needing to prove his heterosexuality. She refuses, wondering what he is so nervous about.

     Running the tracks, he refuses even to recognize Niels, who now takes his runs in the later evenings. The two do not speak.

      Back in their caged off little box where they play soccer, David stands aside looking troubled. Bas teases him, wondering if he misses his boyfriend. “He was no good at soccer,” Bas proclaims, which having seen Niels and David score earlier in this short film, we know to be a lie. Finally, David can stand it no longer and calls Bas on his statements, who now accuses David as also being  a “fag,” David turning to him and responding as if he were a child, “No, you’re the fag.” In a sense, the word no longer has any specific meaning between them, just a filler for someone they hate.

     In the last scenes of the film, we see David joining Stella who’s talking Tim as they sit on the grass. Niels comes running by and David finally joins him.

     Dutch brothers Dylan and Lazlo Tonk have nothing truly new to say in their 2013 film. But it reiterates, if nothing else, that the behavior so many well-meaning individuals presume to have now been abandoned by most Western societies, is still very much alive and active in the personal worlds of young boys and girls in the school halls and sports arenas. Like all the cinematic predecessors and those films that followed which I’ve recounted in these volumes, homophobia is still alive and well on an international level. Societal niceties to not account for the real hate of LGBTQ individuals that survives in most western societies even in 2022, the year of this review. Perhaps the situation will never be resolved until everyone who is not afraid of various other sexualities speaks out, in this case including Niels and David, both of whom have attempted to hide the issue out of fear and others’ hate.

 

Los Angeles, December 14, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).

Christin Freitag | Jetzt Jetzt Jetzt (Beat Beat Beat) / 2013 [TV broadcast]

the end of confusion

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sebastian Köthe (screenplay, inspired by Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless Robert Musil), Christin Freitag (director) Jetzt Jetzt Jetzt (Beat Beat Beat) / 2013 [TV broadcast] [30 minutes]

 

Of the three films included here, by far the most sophisticated is Christin Freitag’s 2013 TV short, Jetzt Jetzt Jetzt, inspired by Musil’s short fiction The Confusions of Young Törless, although Törless, as least as portrayed in Volker Schlöndorff’s 1966 film, does not at all stand up or act in any way to protect the bullied and tortured school mate Basini, but leaves the school returning to the safety of his mother’s arms. Perhaps we might suggest that writer Sebastian Köthe is doing some wishful thinking in imagining his version of Törless, Fabian (Johannes Gäde,) as a far more involved individual, at least by film’s end.

     Throughout Freitag’s richly presented work, Fabian is not only “confused” but basically comatose and sits in the lunchroom seemingly waiting for something to happen in his otherwise quite empty life. At the same time in this very first scene he is also intrigued by, or at least highly observant of, another silent young man, Jakob Götze (Til Schindler), who sits and eats alone each day seemingly mirroring Fabian’s behavior in opposition.

      For if nothing else, Fabian does have friends in Bene (Tilman Pörzgen) and Richard (Jan-David Bürger) who carouse the streets each night. They are not necessarily “bad” boys. Their major action seems to be running and simply “hanging out” late, drinking a little. But at one point, aroused by an evil act of someone (in retrospect we perceive it to be the bully Borschwitz [Philipp Gerstner]) who sets a car afire, they race off almost as if intoxicated by the act. But their evening ends simply with them feeding apples to some llamas they have discovered in field surrounding a manor house.    

     We do quickly recognize, however, that Bene and Richard behave like most of their peers as homophobes. We see early signs when one of the two asks Fabian in the high school bathroom a question about dreaming that he is being sucked off by beautiful woman only to awaken to realize he was being blown by a guy; the question being, would he push him away or sit back and enjoy a perfectly good blowjob. When Fabian pauses, he quickly calls him a “homo.”

       Soon after, Richard and Bene decide to bully Jakob, not because he demonstrates any homosexual behavior, but because he is separate from them and passive when it comes to their constantly menacing actions. During their first go-round with Jakob, they threaten him, but basically don’t harm him as Fabian stands to the side. But a few moments later, when Jakob on his way home meets up with the truly brutal Borschwitz, he is not only taunted but knocked to the ground.

      Another night when Fabian and his friends discover where Jakob lives and see him through the window with a quite beautiful mother, they push their taunts a bit further, ringing his doorbell and proclaiming to his mother that they are his good friends come to visit her son.

      The surprised mother (Barbara Sotelsek), almost pleased to finally discover than her son is not the loner he appears to be, allows them to enter, Jakob obviously a bit terrified by their sudden intrusion but also fascinated by their unknown motives in finding entry to his bedroom, where they immediately call up Borschwitz to join them, forcing Jakob to provide them with his exact address. They begin to taunt their new “friend” in a manner than can only be described as similar to the way in which Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film Rebecca tried to convince her mistress to commit suicide. Bit by bit they mock his worthiness of living, even the “beat beat beat” of his heart, attempting to demonstrate his purposelessness, presumably because of his seemingly passive nature. Finally, Bene even begins to brutalize him physically demanding answers to his to his obscene rhetorical questions.

      The scene, shot in the near claustrophobic quarters of the boy’s bedroom as the two terrorize him at the very same moment when his mother joyfully arrives with cookies for her son’s friends might almost be out of a play by Harold Pinter or a black comedy by Joe Orton. Jakob has no control over his life even in his most inner sanctum.

      Fabian attempts to speak out against his buddies’ brutality a couple of times, but he is immediately silenced. And although he does not participate in any of the torture, his very presence represents him as a silent participator in the terrifying psychological torture of this young man.

      At the very moment when you imagine things might truly turn even worse, they do, but not from within the room, but in the from an exploding sound from outside, followed by a bright light, all of them moving quickly to the window as they watch Borschwitz running off after setting Jakob’s mother’s car on fire. Even Bene and Richard are somewhat appalled by the turn of events, and quickly seek to leave, attempting to pull Fabian with them.

      But he refuses, standing beside Jakob in utter shock. Bene attempts to pull him away again, but Fabian answers “Nah.” And again, with the same response. When the two demand that he hurry away with them—“Are you with us?”—he finally delivers a strongly voiced “Nein,” forcing them to realize that he is breaking with them forever and blaming them for the totality of events. They curse him as they escape.  

     Fabian puts his hand upon Jakob’s shoulder, and a moment later hugs the other boy to him in a sympathetic embrace. It hardly matters whether the embrace is sexual, for it represents a different Fabian from before, one who now stands by Jakob with love and a sense of protection, as well hinting of a new identity, a new life for the previously confused young man. It is the essence of what gay films describe as “coming out.” Whether or not Jakob will now except that love is open to question.

     I can now add Jetzt Jetzt Jetzt to the growing list of my favorite LGBTQ films of the second decade of the millennium, continuing my inventory of the first decade favorites as articulated in my review of Craig Boreham’s short film Drowning (2009).

 

Los Angeles, December 12, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).

Marco Zanoni | Jain / 2012

no experience

by Douglas Messerli

Marco Zanoni (screenwriter and director) Jain / 2012 [14 minutes]

 

A gay man Fabi (Stefan Mascheck) has been having sex for some time with a motocross racer, Benjamin Maleck (Karim Khomiakov), although they’ve had several breaks in their relationship because Benni refuses to admit he’s gay and insistently declares their bedtime sex is due to his alcohol consumption. His claims are so preposterous and meaningless that Fabi is near despair, particularly when, as he leaves, Benni spouts the absurd sentence, “Thanks for the experience.”

      When Fabi earlier asks Benni when he might see him again, he invites him to the races as a photographer the next day and to party he’s throwing in his own trailer later that night, but Fabi, not a fan of the races, is even more unsure of attending the party with Benni’s macho, homophobic friends.

      Fabi’s own mother (Elke Henrich), worried for her son’s happiness, suggests that Benni is simply not the right man for him, and Fabi’s lesbian girlfriend agrees. In order to find true happiness, she argues, Fabi has to stop trying to imagine that someone like Benni will eventually come round, although Fabi’s former lover, now a good friend, hints that in the invitation perhaps Benni is trying to hint at something, indicating a change in his behavior.

       Fabi does show up for the event. But when the races, which Fabi has been asked to photograph, are over, Benni hurries away saying he has to shower, meaning that they will have no time together alone. But once more Benni begs Fabi to join up at the party, and again Fabi is worried about the situation, although Benni half-jokingly promises to protect him if he is attacked.

       At the drunkfest most of Benni’s friends stand at a distance from Fabi, but seem basically unthreatening, even if he is left totally alone. But at one point the nastiest of Benni’s group, Maik (Timocin Ziegler) approaches Fabi, calling him a fag and arguing that this is no place for him. As Fabi reacts, a physical battle ensures. But almost immediately, as promised, Benni does enter into the fray, slugging Maik, who now, along with all of Benni’s old friends, declare that he too is obviously a “fag.”

        After everyone has left, Fabi and Benni sit alone together, Benni finally grasping Fabi’s hand and interlocking fingers with him, making it apparent that he no longer will find excuses to deny their real relationship.

        Jain, a German film directed by Marco Zanoni is not a particularly original “coming out” film, if you can even describe it as fitting that genre given that the central figure’s relationship has been a long one, and Fabi has been openly gay the entire time. Even his invitation to the party surely must have signified to others that Benni had befriended a gay man whom he wanted included in his festivities, a sure give away of his sexual orientation. But the film doesn’t bother to ask subtle questions, moving blithely through its central theme: love will find a way. Too bad we have nothing on which to evaluate their feelings for one another or have no explanation for their love.

 

Los Angeles, December 11, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).

Liang Hu | Listen / 2012

the lives of others

by Douglas Messerli

 

Liang Hu (screenwriter and director) Listen / 2012 [9 minutes]

 

If you’ve ever wondered what all those Chinese bureaucratic spies listening in to their fellow citizens’ phone calls might hear in their daily duties, British, Brighton-based director Liang Hu conjures up his own possibilities in his short film that in many respects might remind one of a shortened version of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s 2006 film The Lives of Others.

     Although the film’s central character Xiaobo (Bruce Chong) is asked to listen in to several mundane conversations, he is most intrigued by an ongoing series of phone chats between a son and his mother about his recent revelation that he is a gay man. The mother goes through the typical catalogue of fears and terrors, that she is somehow personally responsible, that it will destroy her son, that he is willfully choosing to oppose her, and that is the fault of numerous social problems having to do with computers, media, and the sexual lewdness of contemporary culture, all influences upon him particularly after his decision to move from their small village to a large urban area.

     One by one, the son quietly attempts to clarify her misconceptions, to make it clear to her that it is no sin nor immense difficulty in today’s world to be gay, and to finally reassure her that government agents listening in certainly have more important issues on their mind than the interchange between a gay man and his suffering mother.

     And ultimately, like so many confrontations such as this one around the world, it boils down to the selfish dilemmas of what she might say to his relatives, the two aunts who have just visited, etc. If the family ever found out, she proclaims, she would have to jump off a bridge in shame. He suggests that she simply tell them what she has always told them in the past; but having the knowledge she now has, she can conceive of no solution to the societal shaming.

      In the final call, we hear him attempting to make a date for when her two “sons” might visit her, she cutting him off with frightening coldness by declaring, “he is not my son,” presumably meaning her own son’s lover.

      If the Chinese telephone voyeurs have bigger issues on their minds, it seems not to be true for Xiaobo, who listens both on and off the job with close attention. At one point we wonder whether, in fact, he may be creating a dossier about the errant son which will lead to public shaming or even arrest. But gradually we come to suspect—particularly when we read the look of disappointment upon his face when one of his calls is interrupted by a fire drill—that he has more personal reasons for his fascination with the interchange between son and mother.

      Hu suddenly moves his very last scene out-of-doors where we watch someone walk slowly up a street, checking out the addresses, before finally selecting a building and ringing its bell. It is the visitor’s (Xiaobo) father, who he has apparently, as he explains, not been able to see for a long while, his father responding, “You had your reasons. I understand.”

      The visitor asks if he still with Uncle Sun (the word “uncle” being used here as it often is in such cases to mean a family friend, or a relationship that can be explained only by a vague relational term.) Yes, he is still with him, and he is busy cooking the meal; he’ll be happy to see you, suggests the father as the young man enters and the door is closed behind him.

      Clearly, Xiaobo’s own father is a gay man who left the family long ago for “Uncle” Sun. But only now, after hearing the painful conversation about gay life between an unaccepting mother, a kind a bully who cannot be reasoned with, has Xiaobo chosen to finally take a stand, to reunite with his father and rectify the seemingly unforgiving situation that has forced the long separation, presumably centered upon his own mother’s inability to accept the truth. Despite his terrible occupation, Xiaobo has in his own way finally spoken out for the freedom of individual expression and sexuality. The lives of others have revealed truths about himself.

      This film, originally shot, one presumes, in the Chinese dialect whose characters appear as subtitles, has been dubbed by English actors, which I have to admit, I found somewhat offensive. It’s difficult to listen to Chinese characters speaking in Brighton dialects. But I presume the director felt he had to do this in order to attract his target audience. I may be alone is having preferred the characters have the spoken Chinese with English subtitles.

 

Los Angeles, December 12, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).

Douglas Messerli | Standing Up / Speaking Out [Introduction]

standing up / speaking out

by Douglas Messerli

 

In numerous gay films, particularly since Stonewall, we can observe individuals being brutalized by homophobic and just plain fearful heterosexuals or other closeted homosexuals attacking others out of their own self-hatred. All of these result in painful experiences for the usually young homosexuals trying to come to terms with their own sexuality, and often these attacks end in serious injury and sometimes even death.

     Yet, queerly, in very few of these films do the others around the bully do anything major to prevent his acts. Young girls sometimes attempt to quiet down their name-calling boyfriends, to qualm their testosterone-led attacks; but just as often they also participate. And other males—often

part of what might be described a gang-members with the bully representing their leader—generally join in for a psycho-sexual gangbang, or stand back quietly in the corners. Even the so-called nice boys and girls scurry away from such schoolhouse and schoolyard attacks, refusing to even slightly stand up to the bully or group of attackers. And over the years of observing these films I have increasingly come to wonder why these “other” folk, often making up the majority of the schoolyard crowds do not stand up and speak out for the gay student being abused, particularly given that we supposedly now live in a world where the newest Gallup poll (June 2022) indicates that 71% of the US population support gay marriage. Are high school students still so primarily sexually bigoted that they cannot bring themselves to call out open homophobia?

      Or, perhaps young and older gay filmmakers are exaggerating the situation just to make the point that gay bashing still exists. It’s far more dramatic, of course, to show a one-sided confrontation, and to present a world where the bully still rules than to explore the nuances of teen behavior or even the full range of adult homophobia which we all know prevails despite any of the positive statistics.

      A very few films, however, explore the contra-intuitive narrative in which friends, gay or heterosexual, or even strangers stand up to the bullies and speak their minds even while themselves fearing violence and/or social retribution. As early as 1980 even a straight bullied boy such as the fictional Clifford Peache determined since no one would readily come to his defense that he needed to hire a bodyguard, as director Tony Bill demonstrated in his My Bodyguard.

      Coincidence being so much a part of my experience, I encountered it yet again regarding this issue during a period of 2 days, happening upon four movies produced in 2012 and 2013. And, accordingly, I felt is useful to group these four short films, even though I am certain I have already written about others and will surely encounter further examples.

     The four films I discuss are the German-made works Jain, directed Marco Zanoni, and Christan Freitag’s Beat Beat Beat, British filmmaker Liang Hu’s film about Communist China’s phone monitoring, Listen, and Dutch directors Dylan and Lazlo Tonk Uitgesproken (Caged)

 

Los Angeles, December 14, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).

Manfred Rott | Utopies (Utopia) / 2012

imaginary places

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jamal Belmahi and Manfred Rott (screenplay), Manfred Rott Utopies (Utopia) / 2012 [22 minutes]

 

In French director Manfred Rott’s Utopia, a young gay boy, Thomas (Pierre Elliott) lives in a tough Paris suburb where he is taunted by the neighborhood boys. On the internet’s “Gay Chat” he meets up with Julien (Romain Poli), obviously a more experienced and perhaps more intelligent young gay man who tours him through his architecturally bizarre neighborhood, where some apartment buildings seem to sprout bulbous pods that serve as balconies.

     He is a great believer, he argues, in imaginary places, places that you create in your imagination, and he is seeking out just such a location to spend the night, wondering if Thomas will join him. The two bicycle on, stopping to swim in a large public fountain before Julien attempts to pull Thomas off into a thicket to have sex. Thomas, evidently still a virgin, is intrigued and obviously interested, but still too frightened to go through with it.

      So they continue on their voyage through the barren suburban landscape, itself filled with failed utopian projects from the past, imaginary spaces perhaps for the couples of decades earlier, some of which now have fallen into decay and abandonment.

      Julien has chosen one such ruin as he destination, Thomas almost terrified to join him in visiting it, a bit like the impossibly vast Nazi Baltic holiday retreat which is at the center Stéphane Riethauser’s Prora released the same year as this movie.

      In the vast space, Julien has already set up a tent where he has stashed his own bags, and now invites Thomas to explore the space with him, as if it were a new mansion into which they have just moved as a couple. Julien keeps attempting to reveal the beauty of the space, while Thomas is almost dizzied in the mess of debris and jumble of wire fences.

     Thomas can only imagine that Julien has taken him there to fuck him, although Julien insists he is not there for sex. Almost in Leonard Bernsteinian refrain, Julien insists it is the place that matters, a place of their own in which to create something. A place in which they can create a utopia.

     Julien shows him the “garden,” a small bower of pine trees that meet up with the fence next to the railroad tracks. What are your dreams, he asks Julien.

     Simple ones evidently: an apartment in Paris, a girlfriend, a job.

     Julien smiles, suggesting that perhaps Thomas should then avoid “Gay Chat.”

     When Thomas asks Julien what he wants, Julien reminds him of his imaginary places, pointing back to the empty building to indicate that this is one of them, adding “with you.”

      Thomas admits that his talk disturbs him, that he always “catches him up.” I might almost suggest that the suddenness of Julien’s attention takes his breath away. He is both flattered and frightened, and hasn’t yet the imagination to even wonder at the possibility since he hasn’t quite even come out to himself.

      Suddenly, Thomas stands up and runs off, with Julien on the chase. It has become a game, the frightened boy hoping to be caught to be taught what love is all about. Just as suddenly, he stops and they kiss, Julien admitting that he isn’t very good at it, but he will teach him.

 

      Angrily, Thomas stomps off. Back in the “garden” he tries to think things out, to decipher the meaning of all the strange events that have been happening to him since he met Julien.

      Julien attempts to call a taxi for Thomas, but the driver won’t pick them out at since a distant location. But now Thomas is ready to learn, and kisses Julien finally with passion as the boys have full sex without reservations.

        They wake up in each other’s arms in the tent, Thomas asking so what about your utopia then.

        Julien admits it doesn’t work, Thomas finally arguing that it was a nice idea.

      Together, both with backpacks this time, they bicycle to the train, hugging one another as Julien enters the car to be taken back to where he lives. Thomas drives back through the gate where the boys again try to haze him, but is unperturbed. Back in his apartment, he opens a window; he has been given a new life. If it is not a utopia it might at least allow him some further dreaming.

      Several commentators have likened Rott’s short film to the work of Derek Jarman. And like Jarman’s work, it certainly does exude a poetic quality that is worth nothing. But I don’t see Jarman here as much as I see similarities with other such short films of the period, including the works of New Zealand Welby Ings and the aforementioned Prora. More to the point is that Rott’s film is a true original, a lovely tale of coming out that doesn’t involve a verbal announcement. Thomas has finally come to terms with himself, while Julien has come to realize that love is not an ideal but a delightful experience. Any utopias in these boys’ worlds has to be left to their future imaginations.

 

Los Angeles, December 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).

Caetano Gotardo | Merencória (Let the Storm) / 2017

emblems of melancholia

by Douglas Messerli

 

Caetano Gotardo (screenwriter and director) Merencória (Let the Storm) / 2017 [23 minutes]

 

Instead of being a narrative movie, Caetano Gotardo’s Let the Storm might be better thought of as a kind emblem of melancholia or the sadness of losing one’s lover.

 

    The movie begins on an apartment roof with the central figure of this short Brazilian film, Júlia (Andrea Marquee) lying flat on her back with a cigarette in hand. She is soon joined by her husband Manoel (Rogério Brito), who is worried about her smoking while laying down, afraid that the ashes will fall onto her body and burn her. She has already given in to his demands not to smoke in bed, but assures him she’s in no danger.

     As he sits beside her he reminds her of the time on this same roof early in their relationship when they were having a luncheon party, interrupted by a heavy downpour of rain. She began gathering up the dishes, but Manoel remained, soaking wet, telling her to let the storm clean the dishes, while the two made love.

    But in their empty conversations now, it becomes clear that something has come between them, that for reasons unknown their relationship is coming to a close. Manoel begins to tear up and softly cry, as Júlia finally must get ready for a rehearsal (we later discover she is a singer), which this time Manoel will not attend. As with almost everything else in this film, we don’t know what she is rehearsing for—although we later hear her sing the entire song, "A última estrofe" by Cândido das Neves, which inspired this short work. Presumably she is planning a performance or a recording.

     The song itself, with lines such as "Singer who so speaks to the moon / My story is just like yours / My love also ran away," is obviously about the subject at hand, lost love, beautifully sung in full by actress Marquee with an accordion accompaniment by Carlos (Bruno Rudolf), all managed by Renan (Jose Geraldo Jr.). Her song moves even the accordionist.

     When she finishes the song, we shift characters, now observing Carlos laying in his purple underpants on the floor of the studio. Renan announces that he is closing up, but Carlos refuses to budge. Renan finally attempts to pull him up, and when that doesn’t work, tries to wrestle him up as Carlos resists. Both men are winded and sit for a moment. Finally, Renan undresses and in the nude mounts Carlos as the two engage in a hot sexual encounter.

     It is obvious that they too have been in a relationship that is slipping out from under them, but at least they confirm their former love in sex. Perhaps the storm of sexual desire has washed away the refuse that has come between them?

     But in both these cases, we really know nothing at all about these couples, why their relationships have failed, or even at what intensity they lived out their relationships. They are symbols of individuals who are losing the moonlight which previously lit up their lives. They are emblems of the sadness that remains.

 

Los Angeles, December 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).