Maximilian Homaei | Kettle / 2014

religious hate

by Douglas Messerli

 

Maximilian Homaei and Shiyan Zheng (screenplay), Maximilian Homaei (director) Kettle / 2014 [38 minutes]

 

Two young gay boys, Kris (Christian Byers) and Andre (James Fraser) are in love, but they also attend a conservative and repressive Catholic school, Kris as well “blessed” with a cold and unfeeling mother (Kelly Butler) who worships the terrible wardens of her son’s sexual imprisonment. When he fights back against the bullies, it is he who gets suspended for a few days, not the others.

    At the same moment in his life, he is beginning to perceive a great many other things, as he goes in search of his missing father. For one thing his mother seems to be involved with one of his priestly teachers, Father Peter (Jai Koutrae), which perhaps explains why he is punished for the bullying of others. The mother is also opposed to him even having a friendship with Andre, who, after all, doesn’t attend church. He also tracks down his sister, Claudia (Lizzie Schebesta), who has long ago left the family, a woman who apparently works after the hours she works as a waitress as a stripper named Maggie Love in a local bar.

     Our young hero takes his friend to the bar in which she works, and after they play cards, the friend seemingly utterly enchanted with a new woman in his life, without recognizing that it is, in fact, his friend’s sister. We have entered new territory, perhaps a challenge to their gay relationship. But it is also an attempt to comprehend Kris’ own past and future.

     He asks her about his father, but her only answer seems to be, “You were too young Kris, and now it’s too late.” But who can he turn to? He cannot talk to his mother. He has only pictures.

     She insists that despite his other affairs, the father was still very much in love with their mother. But even more importantly, as she looks over at the sleeping and drunken Andre, she suggests to her brother “You should tell him.” Obviously, she is aware of his love for his friend.

     His mother is furious that he comes home the next day, and even more angry when he suggests that she still has a daughter, for which she roundly slaps him for even mentioning the fact. This is a woman who has carefully struggled not to care for anything outside her restricted religious beliefs.

     Once more, Father Peter, the handsome man with a hairbun, reminds him of his responsibilities, and the fact that he has suspended the boy to reflect on his actions. But this time, finally Kris, stands up to the world of genuflection, admitting that he has indeed reflected on his actions. “I know why you’re here,” he adds, “you gonna tell me that my father didn’t love me?”  Finally, he speaks out that he no longer cares what the priest has to say, that he doesn’t have to listen to him anymore. The only answer this hateful priest can provide is that his sister will also betray him.

     This is a sour world in which a young 17-year-old boy in Catholic school has to accept or himself be punished. A kiss from Andre results in a slug. Something truly awful has happened. Even love has lost its potent meaning. He attempts to visit his sister, but his kept out by her boyfriend. He screams out to him without her responding; she has in fact left her own brother to the wolves.

     For his punishment, the priest and his mother oversee his conversation therapy, watching a movie of two young gay lovers while they pour a kettle of hot water, as he is locked into a chair, upon his penis.

     Oddly, or perhaps I should say predictably, a number of commentators came out of the Catholic Church benches to proclaim on IMDb this film as a hateful protestation of their beliefs. This could not happen in our church they all proclaimed. Perhaps in other religions such as Islamic and Judaic traditions, but not ours! But of course, we know even worse sins were committed in the name of the Catholic Church, young boys killed, young girls sent into relationships with older men, and young and older priests preying on young boys of all ages. Indigenous people, poor children, and children born out of wedlock were punished for their non-existent “sins.” Religions of all kind have destroyed more people for being something “other” than almost any other force on earth. The “kettle” here is a symbol of the pure hypocrisy not only of Catholicism but of all fervent believers who can’t permit anything outside of their narrow purviews. The wonderful Norwegian writer, Jens Bjørneboe spent much of his life revealing the dangers of religious and socially narrow views. But again and again religious fundamentalists of all sorts go blithely forward destroying other’s lives.

 

Los Angeles, March 19, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2025)