the fish in the tree
by
Douglas Messerli
Evan
Spergel (screenplay), Francis Luta (director) Turbulence / 2016 [12 minutes]
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Actually, in this comic break-up movie—the
plane remains intact, it’s the two good looking gay boys who fall apart—it
might be said that it’s the Flight Attendant’s (Caroline Toal) fault. After she
announces the plane’s imminent landing in Toronto, she turns to Alex, telling
him in no uncertain terms: “Just like your hairline, your dreams are fading…fast.
Those dreams you had of becoming an actor, writer, dancer, and Broadway star
are fading away. Welcome to the rest of your pathetic and unfulfilling life.”
Of course, Alex is just projecting, as he
is prone to do. He still remembers, with great pain, the day his French teacher
asked the class to hold up a “crayon,” he proudly pulling out his red crayon
while everyone else in the class held up their pencils. The teacher grabbed the
colored Crayola from Alex’s childhood hand and marched it across the room,
asking the rest of the children whether of not it was a French “crayon.”
Alex, evidently, as several times
throughout his life made the wrong choices, and he fears he is just about to do
so again, having just procured a job of an art designer in an advertising firm.
The handsome man, whose head is on his shoulder in sleep, Brett, would not have
made such a mistake. He has known where he was going perhaps since birth. As he
himself describes it: “My name is Brett Smith, I’m a student and soon to be
graduate of the Toronto Law School, with honors. Then I will work for my father’s
law firm, Smith and McKinley as a partner. Then I will buy my gorgeous,
successful art director boyfriend a penthouse in Greece where we will spend the
winters luxuriously in the sun.”
How can one resist such on offer? But even
though the Flight Attendant has described Alex as a coward, we quickly realize
that the true coward is the self-assured Brett who, when just a bit of
turbulence hits the plane, goes into a terrified mode of behavior insisting
that he is too young and hot to die. “O God, O God, we’re going down,” he cries
out as he insists that Alex just hold his fucking hand.
In the game of introducing himself that
Brett has begun, Alex changes his role from art director to his original dream
of becoming an actor/writer/dancer, Brett reminding him that when he got the
job as an artist in the ad-firm Brett’s parents broke out a $900 bottle of wine
just for the occasion.
The suggestion is that Alex will fuck up
again, which understandably angers Alex who obviously has been described as a
failure many a time in his life as opposed to Brett being praised as a “golden
boy” who can do no wrong. Alex tells the story of the fish who is told to climb
a tree. The fish will spend the rest of his life trying to climb the tree
without ever succeeding he observes. I am the fish; the fish is the crayon,
Alex metaphorically explains without Brett being fully able to comprehend.
The reason he has been talked out of his
dreams, time and again, Alex insists he because he was afraid Brett would leave
him. “And I don’t want that.”
But almost at the very same moment, he
realizes that if he actually attempts to realize his dreams that is precisely
what will occur.
Once more Brett tries to talk Alex out of
making yet another mistake, adding that it was difficult enough to tell his
parents that he was gay. “Can you imagine if I told them that my boyfriend
wants to become a thespian?”
Another bumpy moment sends him again into
near panic.
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This short Canadian film is not truly
profound, but it comically works as a fixer-upper for one man’s confusion of
stability with love. You cannot color life with a pencil no matter how detailed
your drawing.
Los
Angeles, June 30, 2025
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2025).
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