Eric Shahinian | Good Night / 2019

learning how to dance

by Douglas Messerli

 

Eric Shahinian (screenwriter and director) Good Night / 2019 [11 minutes]

 

The cute Armenian boy (Yianni Kaatsifas), walking home with another boy he’s just met at a gay bar (Robert Walker Jeffery), is a bit defensive and on edge, suggesting that his new friend’s presumption that it was his first visit to a gay bar might be mistaken. But when Robert (as I’ll call Yianni’s friend since they are given no character names) bends to kiss him good night, he turns away, obviously uncomfortable about being seen kissing in public. Accordingly, we recognize Yianni as a man who has just recently accepted his being gay.

     The bittersweet comedy which follows is entirely centered upon Yianni’s good intentions but his inability to fully participate in many if not most of the gay activities open to him, making his evening with Robert quite uncomfortable to his visitor, and unfulfilling to our attractive and well-meaning neophyte.

      The evening begins when Yianni invites his friend up for cognac, a grand treat which anyone who loves liquors could not resist. And in yet another surprise, Yianni puts on some Armenian music and shows Robert—such a quick study that one suspects he must be a dancer—how to dance an intimate folk dance, the men holding fingers, which in his small apartment immediately leads to intense kissing, stripping off their shirts, and Robert hovering over Yianni on the bed.

       Yianni, however, begs for a moment to pee. He’s back, seemingly ready to continue their sexual entanglement, but when Robert reaches back to feel his ass, Yianni suddenly announces: “I don’t do that.” When asked why, he simply responds, “It’s uncomfortable,” which is true, particularly, for someone who hasn’t much explored anal intercourse. But the options, accordingly, become more limited.

       As they kiss again, Yianni suddenly switches positions, puts on a condom and quickly fucks his friend. After, he begins to masturbate Robert, but when Robert pushes on his head to indicate in might suck him off, Yianni again resists. Presumably he also doesn’t engage in oral sex. By this time Robert isn’t up to an orgasm, in part because of Yianni’s rough handling. But Yianni, trying still to be the nice host, insists, “I want you to come.”

        Robert demurs, suggesting it’s okay, as he gets up, goes to the bathroom, and dresses. Yianni follows him back downstairs, suggesting they get together again for an upcoming performance artist, he’ll even pay. Knowing that he has once again “fucked up,” he even offers a final kiss on lips in public. Robert responds, “I’ll call you, good night,” and walks away in what we and even Yianni knows will be the very last time.

        I am sure that many a viewer of this short would hardly blame Robert for his dismissal of a man still uncomfortable with the full experience of gay sex. But I feel sad for Yianni who hasn’t yet learned that sex is not simply about releasing his sperm, but a full bodily involvement with the other man in his bed. Eager to please, he’s nonetheless learned none of the ways to engage his sexual partners, let alone to communicate with them beyond the range of his own nascent identity still clinging on to his old sense of self. Hopefully, he will soon learn to fully engage with the world he has just embraced.

      Shahinian’s film, shot in a highly nuanced black-and-white, has a rich, velvety effect which makes one almost want to reach into the screen and embrace the bodies flickering there in the light. The texture of their bodies seems so real and beautiful that we are made even more painfully aware of everything that Yianni is missing. And perhaps I should mention that Robert Walker Jeffery looks a little like Anthony Perkins.

 

Los Angeles, May 17, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).