Francis Papillon | Je m'excuse (I’m Sorry) / 2022

start again

by Douglas Messerli

 

Virginie Nolin (screenplay), Francis Papillon (director) Je m'excuse (I’m Sorry) / 2022 [20 minutes]

 

Louis (Emile Dufour) seems to have everything. He has a handsome businessman lover, Sam (Dany Boudreault) who has just bought him a new suburban house. And he has friends in the Village back on Montreal. He plans to return to a party there hosted by his friend, Nadine (Noé Lira), but when he mentions the invitation to Sam, his boyfriend reminds him that he will just be returning from a trip to Toronto, and he would like to spend the night alone with him.

    Louis agrees. But in Sam’s absence he grows increasingly lonely, separated from the world he left behind and which, evidently, contributed to his being HIV positive. Even a walk through the wealthy suburban streets ends in a negative reaction from Sam. Louis had left his phone back at the house, and Sam became worried when he couldn’t contact him. Oddly enough, this neighborhood still has an old-fashioned pay phone on a nearby street.

     Yet we sense that there is something else about Sam’s concern, his overprotective caring for his lover, and his determination to keep Louis away from all his old friends. And when he comes back from Toronto somewhat early to discover that Louis has not only bought a new car, but is planning to split out that evening for a party at Nadine’s house, he grabs Louis’s cellphone and refuses to return it, as if the 24-year-old were a child. He insists that Louis remain home.

     Their argument leads to Louis pushing Sam away, with him falling to the ground. And soon after, when Louis refuses to stay at home, with Sam slugging Louis.

      This is a film, quite obviously, about domestic violence between gay men. But in this case, we have so little history, so little understanding of either figure, that we can only say that the incidents might be described as exceptional, a result of childish behavior on both their parts. Certainly, we can sympathize with Louis’ feeling of being something like a locked-up trophy wife. But we can also perceive why Sam may wish to ween his friend away from his old gay friends and certainly might be appalled by the sudden purchase of an expensive sports car and Louis’ inability to simply stay in for the night of his lover’s return.

       In short, this film seems to record an incident rather than a history of abuse. And, although the film appears to side with Louis, we can also comprehend much of Sam’s anger. French-Canadian director Francis Papillon’s short work also leaves us with a question of what truly will now happen between the couple, Sam arguing just before he has struck Louis that they “start over,” that perhaps they are simply at a point of misunderstanding.

     But for Louis, it appears, the relationship is over, and that he can no longer trust Sam. We don’t know either man well enough to know whether what has occurred may become a regular pattern and an issue they can perhaps easily settle by setting up some sort of boundaries for both them, Sam granting Louis more independence, and Louis, having perhaps taken into account Sam’s disapproval of his previous life, attempting to find some meaningful activities other than partying at Nadine’s house.

      As this short film stands, it appears to be a warning about domestic abuse without fully considering the issues which led to this perhaps momentary violence. Perhaps Papillon’s work is simply meant to be a warning of violence being employed in any relationship, but someone I don’t get that feeling. I suspect Louis and his attempts to control the other man’s life is meant to show how he is a villain. Maybe, the film simply needed to be longer, to further explore what was behind the unfortunate event.

     I may also be asking these questions to some degree because of my memory that when my husband Howard and I first met in 1970, at about the same age as this couple, we were also involved in incidents of violence, both of us still immature and needing to learn in a world that doesn’t teach gay men about relationships that, being both very different people in some respects, we would eventually have to give up certain behaviors which we felt defined our own sense of being. Yet we survived, and lived together for 55 years, our anniversary coming up five days from the date I wrote this piece.

     I think that it might have been more interesting for such a film as I’m Sorry to explore the fact that men in many societies are unfortunately taught, through competitive sports and patriarchal attitudes defining gender, to be violent. And both Howard and I, moreover, had encountered some childhood bullying, being told by our parents that we needed to learn how to “fight back,” to stand up for our own rights. Violence is never acceptable in a relationship or marriage, but it also might be expected. And to immediately turn tail with horror would end so many ultimately positive gay male relationships. This couple, it appears, doesn’t necessarily need to “start over,” but to “start again,” with both men realizing the dangers of attempting to resolve differences with fists.

 

Los Angeles, January 31, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2025).