the shamed-boy
by Douglas Messerli
Cédric Desenfants (screenwriter and director) Burning
Soul: The Raising of the Flag / 2016 [14 minutes]
Obviously, a lover of history, for his
graduating film from The Sydney Film School Cédric Desenfants directed a full
costume drama of the remaining crew from a ship of The Dutch East India
Company, wrecked in 1727 upon the shore of the hostile world of New Holland,
now Australia. The captain of the ship Jan Steins (Mal Bailey), and five of
sailors survived and are now stranded. But as the film begins, we realize that
two of these men, Pieter Engels (Teo Falck) and Hendrick Armanse (Rasmus
Hansen) have evidently committed some horrible crime, since they alone are tied
up to trees, having been beaten, and left without food or drink for several
days, their lips dry and swollen.
As
they awaken just before dawn, Pieter begins to howl like a wolf, with Hendrick
soon following, the echo making it sound as if a true wolfpack were on the
prowl. Hendrick is quickly silenced by the guard on duty, Adriaen Spoor (Rasmus
Callmer), who beats him his face with the butt of his rifle. When Pieter howls
again in response to his friend’s treatment, he too his beaten.
Left alone for a period again, the two find that by reaching their feet
out as far as possible they can almost touch each other’s toes, and they do so,
again stopped by Adriaen.
The
press material tells us that the two young men “grew up together, sailed
together, survived together.” And we soon get a glimpse of their crime as a
flashback reveals them bending toward one another with a kiss. Obviously, these
two men are in love and have been caught fornicating, an unforgiveable crime
even though with long months and often years sailing together without any
women, everyone knows that sailors were forced to rely on one another for sex.
It is perhaps that these two have been seen kissing or simply the fact that
they were caught having sex that is their crime, not the word used to
describe, soon after, as they are brought to trial: Sodomites.
Soon Adriaen begins loosening their ropes, Pieter, who evidently also
grew up with Adriaen, reminding him that he was once a young boy unable to even
tie a rope. But Adriaen can evidently not forgive him for his sinful act, and
both are taken before the captain, who reads out the crime and is about to
pronounce the punishment, when another of the sailors begins to taunt Hendrick
as no longer being a man.
Suddenly they stand in unison and rush toward the others, Adriaen
following behind them with his sword in attack position and slashing into
Hendrick’s neck, almost beheading him. As blood rushes from the boy’s wound,
Pieter falls over him in spasms of tears and expressions of his love. Pieter is
pulled away, a gunny sack put over his head and, apparently, tossed into the
ocean. What also becomes subtly apparent in his choices previously of beating
Hendrick more brutally and now choosing to kill him, is that Adriaen is perhaps
quite jealous of Pieter’s love.
In
the very next frames of the film we see him in shallow waters attempting to
free his face from the sack. When he succeeds, he falls upon the beach in
exhaustion, the scene depicting what is obviously a fantasy or feverish
delusion: Hendrick bending over him to kiss his lips.
When he finally awakens, he finds a flag, in the same bands of red,
white, and blue of the Dutch flag, also tied to his wrists. Pulling it off, he
recognizes it as a special flag with the words
“Schandjongen” written upon it, which in Dutch
reads “Shamed-boy,” but is translated in the film as “Sodomite,” presumably to
make sure the audience, had they missed it earlier, would know what he was
being shamed for.
He
ties the flag to a stick of wood and, standing upon a high cliff looking out to
sea, proudly waves it.
Desenfants’ movie is quite beautifully filmed and fascinating in its
presentation of yet another little known aspect of gay history, reminding us of
the more complex tale of an innocent sailor killed for his beauty and honesty, Billy
Budd.
Los Angeles, August 18, 2023
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August
2023).
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