by Douglas Messerli
Harry Jenkins
(screenwriter and director) In Another Time / 2025 [17 minutes]
In this rather unbelievable sci-fi like short, a
young British boy, Peter Savage (Callum Hart) decides to visit the Paris in
which his grandmother evidently lived during World War II as a gunrunner in the
Resistance movement.
To his surprise he is assigned a hotel room in which a young French boy of his age, Matthias Moret (Robert Moreau) has already been ensconced.
At
first, the two boys are a bit testy, neither of them having expected to have to
share a room. But gradually, in particular when Matthias hears what he imagines
is a bombing raid, they realize they are from different times (foretold in the
fact that Matthias is reading H. G. Wells dystopian fiction, The Time Machine), Peter living in 2024,
while Matthias is a frightened gay man from 1944.
They
briefly discuss their own relationships with their families, Peter suggesting
he doesn’t much get on with his family since he came out, while Matthias
speaking about the necessity to keep his boyfriends secret at all costs.
Actually, had the film more fully explored those differences it might have been
a far more interesting and complex film. But basically the closet is where the
differences stop.
Despite their ephemeral existence, the boys
have sex, Peter awakening in the room alone with no trace of his supposed
ghostly bed mate—except for the Wells book, which evidently must have triggered
his French fantasy.
Jenkins’
script repeats “We all have our own time machines,” without really bothering to
explain why the young British boy might have even wanted to call up a boy from
Paris during the War, let alone have sex with the phantom.
Presumably it’s the only way he can imagine his grannie’s youth. Perhaps
the whole trip to Paris is even imaginary. But, at least, he has a new book for
his library.
Los Angeles, March 15, 2025
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2025).
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