the vampire
by
Douglas Messerli
Tania
Karenni (screenwriter and director) La Repetición (The Repetition)
/ 2024 [15 minutes]
Believe
me I know the addictions of alcoholism, how you can give up drink for even
several years at a time, to only break your devoted determination to stay off
of the drink until one day you have another, and then always another and another
again.
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The major character of this short Mexican
film Daniel (Ernesto Siller) does just that, although only for a couple of
weeks. He pours out all of his beer, suffers through the transition, and
attempts to move on. But bi-sexual director Tania Karenni confuses this all
with a sexual addiction that her hero Daniel has for a fairly abusive lover, Erick
(Raymundo J. Cruz) who comes only once a week, or even less, knocking loudly on
Daniel’s door to let him in to have an almost vampire-like sex session.
Despite the fact that I too have been
addicted to sex, the two are not the same and don’t function
in
the same manner, and the comparison, quite frankly, seems quite homophobic. Yes,
certain relationships can be as destructive as alcoholic fixes. But they’re not
the same thing. Sex is not a liquor, and it does not necessarily destroy the
body the way alcohol does. Moreover, when hurt enough times, one learns to
easily dismiss the sex, where, I’m sorry to say, alcohol addiction doesn’t
leave you in peace. This false analogy leaves you with the notion that if you
are gay and absolutely love someone you are in the same place as a heavy
beer-drinker.
No, that’s not what sex is about. Sex is
a communicative process, even when it fails, alcohol a condition which
ultimately leaves you in total isolation. And I resent the comparison, having
shared both addictions. I have never regretted any sexual involvement, and
basically, given that I escaped the AIDS era, sex has never to my knowledge
been dangerous to my health. I never met a vampire, and I frankly don’t believe
in their existence.
But yes, drink can do you in, destroy your
body, your consciousness, your life.
False analogies don’t impress me, and I
truly find them offensive. I’ll take a vampire any day over another bottle of
beer. I’ll even drink to that! And just have.
Los
Angeles, March 21, 2025
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema (March 2025).
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