Mark Levine | Follower / 2009

two bodies prepared to make love: a film about nothing

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mark Levine (screenwriter and director) Follower / 2009 [15 minutes]

 

In Follower, writer/director Mark Levine has no story to tell. Indeed, nothing quite happens to the two lost high school boys, one of them, Eric (Artie Ahr), the leader if he can be described in that manner, still skate-boarding like he were a 10-year-old kid; the other boy, Matt (Patrick Stafford) basically just hanging out with his friend and passively following his suggestions.

      It begins with Matt walking out of his well-do-do home and wandering down a sidewalk to an underpath where he meets up with Eric, the two sitting down on the concrete, their backs against the wall as he pulls out a small bong, handing it over to Eric who lights up, inhales, and hands it back. The two enjoy a few inhalations and move on to a friend’s house, Dana (Laurel Vail), whose mother suggests their unannounced visit is impolite, but still invites them in. They join Dana in her room, each inhaling a few more rounds of marijuana while discussing issues about friends that are indecipherable to an outsider. Evidently Matt’s brother has stopped dealing drugs because of his girlfriend and, we gather, that they purchased their newest batch of pot from someone’s mother.

     At one point Eric signals Matt to ask a question of Dana, is it true she has some acid? She does, and they’re off, putting the tablets into their mouths as they walk towards Matt’s house.

     There Eric almost passes out on Matt’s bed, while Matt sits on the floor. That is until Eric, fed up with the music, shuffles through Matt’s collection of tapes, choosing one, putting it on and joining Matt on the floor, where he sprawls out next to him. Matt, with nowhere to put his feet, finally drapes them over his friend’s legs, but the carefulness with which he does this suggests that he is highly sensitive to the issue of touching his friend, not usually a sign of heterosexual disinterest, but of some sexual feelings which he doesn’t wish to admit to either his friend or himself.

      A short while later Matt is alone in his room. We hear a voice calling out to him: “Matt,” three times. The boy follows the sound to the bathroom where it is clear Eric is showering. He enters, wondering if something is wrong with his friend. But when he enters we see Eric standing naked with the shower door open. Although we cannot ourselves observe it, apparently Eric has an erection, for soon after Matt quickly strips down and joins him in the shower.

     The two beautiful boys stand closely facing one another before they kiss, and Eric goes down on Matt.

      In a version of gay male coitus interruptus we hear Matt’s mother’s voice, apparently having just returned home and curious about her son’s whereabouts. After a couple of queries, he responds that he’s in the bathroom. Eric stands and turns off the shower. Leaving the tub, he begins to dress.

      In the next scene the boys are in a car with Matt at the wheel, waiting at a red light in complete silence except for a song on the radio. Eric leans over and turns the radio to a rather louder song, but Matthew turns in back to the quieter one. Has the dynamics changed between them?

      The light eventually turns green and they drive off. Evidently reaching their destination, presumably Eric’s home, the two sit quietly in the car saying nothing as they stare mostly forward with a quick glance of Matt to Eric before turning back to look ahead. Eric takes out a cigarette, takes a couple tokes, and turns to leave, speaking the film’s final words, “See ya.”

      As I said, nothing truly happens in this film, or maybe everything does. Have they discovered something about each other and themselves? Will they carry through with their encounter or reject it as nothing meaningful, a result merely of the acid or marijuana they previously smoked. Have they possibly gone through these actions previously or is this the very first time?

      We have no answers, not even a hint since neither of these figures is developed as a true character. They serve simply as two beautiful bodies ready to join one another in a pleasurable act. We must imagine the next step. Or wipe away what we witnessed as unintentional voyeurs.

     It is as if the director were merely taunting us, giving us a temporary high the way the drugs function for these two young men. But after, alas, there is nothing. If Matt and Eric are merely followers of their momentary whims and one another, we desire to know what might happen next, while realizing it can only be the emptiness of the black screen upon which their director scrolls his credits.

 

Los Angeles, April 3, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 3, 2022).