Robert W. Gray | Aidos / 2016

the shame of love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Robert W. Gray (screenwriter and director) Aidos / 2016 [5 minutes]

 

The narrator of Canadian director Robert Gray’s Aidos begins the short film with declaring that “by the time Ben died 21 people had declared their romantic love for him.” I would suggest, given the film’s title, that the word “romantic” here is out of place, since, as the narrator continues to explain, “some [of the expressions of love] came too early and some too late,” the words turning out in the end to be somewhat of a hieroglyph.

    Indeed, by showing 21 faces of mostly males but also females we must question which of these expressions of the simple phrase “I love you” represent the many different associations gathered around the word “Aidos,” the Greek Goddess of shame, modest, respect, humility, and numerous other inter-related concepts, including honor, sobriety, moderation, scandal, and disgrace.

    Given the context we must suppose that Ben died young, of AIDS—a dirge accompanies the images and we get one glimpse of what appears to be a sick man sitting up a bed—and that the faces were are observing are those of lovers, family members, well-wishers, bedside visitors, old friends, perhaps even nurses and doctors, etc. And it is only by attempting the carefully read their faces that we can determine what their true feelings, despite their outward expressions of love, might mean.

    Some apparently love with erotic desire without the modesty or shame, others almost hypocritically say those words with a sense of pity for the sense of shame that his illness represents. Still others contextualize their love as family members expressing a sense of respect and honor; while a few seem to say the words almost with a sense of scandal in their very love of the young man.

    Gray provides us with no guidelines, and as I watched his very short, 5-minute, film over and over I keep alternating my interpretations of the faces’ expressions, subtly reinterpreting the words that we cannot hear spoken.

    Ultimately, we must recognize that it is a fruitless game that even appears to trivialize the word love, which most certainly wipes away any romantic connotations. Love here is anything but romantic; it is embarrassed, polite, conforming, accepting, even erotic perhaps, but seldom if ever “romantic” in this context. And, in that sense, the film is quite unrelated to the issue of his queerness, but is grounded simply in Ben being a diseased man, shamed perhaps only for having contracting a disease he could not escape.

 

Los Angeles, May 15, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).