Federico Mottica | Pure / 2023

taking a turn

by Douglas Messerli

 

Federico Mottica (screenwriter and director) Pure / 2023 [17 minutes]

 

Andrea (Jean Malik Amara) and Fabrizio (Fabrizio Colica) are a middle-aged gay couple. Today is Fabbri’s birthday, and they have invited two of their best friends Valeria and Michele (Daniele Paoloni and Andrea Romano) for dinner. She explains that Michi and she are breaking up. Their gay friends seem more upset about it than the couple themselves do, the couple having apparently discussed it at length and coming to the conclusion that it was the best thing to do.

     Indeed, Fabbri no longer wants to go out to dinner, and Andrea wants to know whose decision it was, despite the couple’s repetition that they are “fine.” But they seemed always like the perfect couple Fabbri insists; how did they come to this decision? Again, the couple tries to move on to dinner, but Fabbri insists he no longer wants to go to dinner with them. “It just seems absurd to me that you come here out of the blue and tell us that you are breaking up. Why?”

     It’s not a tragedy, Michi insists. People break up for all sorts of reasons.

     In the next frame the gay couple are seen readying for bed, Andrea wondering if Fabrizio is keeping anything from him. “Desires, dissatisfactions, feelings….”

     “No. You?”

     Basically, Andrea is tired of Fabrizio’s criticalness. But both agree it isn’t the right evening to discuss it. Yet almost immediately after, Andrea gets a message that there’s a cute French cyclist nearby, and argues that they should put him up for the night. What’s clear in their short discussion is that this gay couple often meets up with male travelers in this manner, sharing them in sex. But tonight, his birthday already ruined, Fabrizio claims has no interest in a cute cyclist or being, as Andrea seems to invoke, “a good Samaritan.” If Andrea wants to play the role, he should go ahead without him, a reaction that appears to give evidence that the couple also have a fairly open relationship.

      The cyclist, Jean-Malik from Lille, arrives and Andrea quite joyfully greets him. Although Fabrizio comes out to meet him, he quickly heads off to bed. To Andrea, Jean-Malik describes his travels thus far.

      Back in the bedroom, Fabrizio can see that Andrea wants to fuck the endlessly pedaling bicyclist, and assures his lover that he won’t be offended. But Andrea says he doesn’t want to, although, he admits, it could have been fun together.

      When Andrea actually joins his companion in bed, Fabrizio comments that he can’t believe that Andrea hasn’t gone to join their guest. And soon after, Andrea does indeed begin to sneak out, after a cellphone message, to join Jean-Malik. Fabrizio comments, “All it took was one text message?” Andrea admitting, “I’m easy to convince.”

       But before he goes, he repeats what Jean-Malik first said upon seeing Fabrizio: “You’re cute,”

Fabbri responding, “So are you.” They kiss.

       In the very next frame, the bicyclist, stroking, Andrea’s chest, observes that he’s never quite met a couple like them. “What kind?”

       You seem free, the boy comments.

       “I’m not sure if we’re free,” Fabbri answers.

       “Well, from the outside you seem to love one another.”

      Andrea admits that when he met Fabrizio he was not at all his vision of an ideal man. But he goes on to describe him as kind. “He can’t lie. He’s pure.”

       Now back in his own bed, Andrea wakes up to see that Fabrizio is gone, and when he moves to the living room, sees Fabrizio now in the arms of the boy asleep.

       Clearly, somewhat jealous, perhaps confused that Fabrizio had not wanted to share the boy, or just curious why Fabrizio has also bedded Jean-Malik without him, Andrea goes for a long walk. It seems that in taking his own turn in being with the bicyclist, Fabrizio has also perhaps pointed to a “a turn” in their relationship.

      During the walk we witness another scene between the two men, presumably from another time when another such boy was about to arrive, perhaps when they were still enjoying such sex together, a time when Fabrizio shared his entries from his diary. I have to admit, I found this scene somewhat confusing and perhaps unnecessary since it interrupts the logic of the director’s ending. And the first time I saw this movie, it threw me off, making it difficult to comprehend the closing sequence.

       Andrea soon returns home to find the boy gone. Fabrizio asks him where he has been, Andrea responding, “Away from you.” He turns to Fabbri: “Do you love me?”

       Fabrizio, the truth-teller, answers “No.” Yet he kisses him, suggesting that he’ll make some coffee and telling him to brush his teeth.

       Despite the confusing flash-back, if that’s what it was, Italian director Federico Mottica’s restrained work is a rather profound psychological portrait of two men involved in a long relationship, committed to one another and perceiving themselves long past the time when jealousy and a sense of self-worth might seem to matter, yet still having to daily come to terms with those very issues despite the longevity of their marriage.

       After a while, such a relationship becomes something that seems almost beyond “love,” at least the kind of romantic love young couples usually define as the essence of their relationship. Perhaps Andrea and Fabrizio were so shocked by their friends’ breakup simply because their own relationship has reached a plane where being without the other, no matter how that is or isn’t physically expressed, is beyond imagination. The two have come to share a life that can no longer be unwound.

 

Los Angeles, July 30, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).