Vladimir Bek | Я не боюсь (I Am Not Afraid) / 2021

terror of love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Vladimir Bek (screenwriter and director) Я не боюсь (I Am Not Afraid) / 2021 [22 minutes]

 

Phil (Mark Eydelshteyn) and Misha (Illarion Marov), fellow students, are more than friends. Many nights Phil stays over at Misha’s house when Phil joins Misha in his bed, the two sharing in sex.

    But this is, after all, contemporary Russia, where all such sexual relationships must be hushed up, and they quickly crawl back into their respective beds.

     At breakfast Phil nicely covers for his friend when his mother wonders why both of the handsome boys are not being chased the girls. Misha, he suggests, has a girlfriend. Having never heard from her son about such an event, she wishes Phil wasn’t moving away with his family to Germany. Why couldn’t he sleep, as he has so many times, in Misha’s room; they would adopt him, she fantasizes.

    For Misha, however, the upcoming separation is nearly unbearable as he attempts to imagine himself in a totally heterosexual world. In fact, there is a school girl who has her eye on him, Liza (Olga Balatskaya), who with her girlfriends joyfully watch Misha do his required pushups in gym class.

    The frailer Phil, however, surprises them all by doing an even greater number of pushups, and, as if to sustain his macho, Misha returns to match his friend’s achievement—unsuccessfully.

   Liza telephones Misha soon after, inviting him to a party at her house; she too is leaving with her family to Bulgaria.

    Misha, however, is angry at his impending situation, crawling back into the bed where Phil spent the night just to smell the linens where his night lover slept.

    At Liza’s party, Misha mostly hangs out on sidelines, finally leaving the house for a smoke. Liza, spotting his exit, joins him, demanding a kiss, which Misha eagerly offers up, suddenly attempting sex with the girl—but again unsuccessfully. As he two lay together on the grass, he turns away ashamed, while Liza assures him that doesn’t need to do anything he doesn’t want to do, hinting that she may suspect his feelings for Phil.

     Meanwhile, back in inside the house, another girl tells the boys teasing her that she most certainly would make love with a girl or even a transgender individual, they defining her as non-binary slut, as one of the boys Goggles it and reads out the definition to all.

     Most of the girls and even a couple of the boys agree that definitions of gender are assigned by the society, although Liza shares her irritation with the whole “LGBT thing.”

     Phil, finally speaks out, arguing against any labels, suggesting that if he kisses his girlfriend that doesn’t mean he’s heterosexual, or if he were to have sex with a boy he isn’t necessary gay. Finally, Misha, taking his cue from Liza, adamantly speaks out against such ideas.

     In response Phil challenges his secret friend to play “Truth or Dare,” daring him to kiss him. Misha refuses, suggesting he’s afraid he might get a disease, Phil reminding him that AIDS is not contracted through saliva. Angrily Misha is about to leave until Phil finally calls out his lover, naming him as a coward.

 

   Misha returns and appears to give Phil an extremely long an intense kiss; but we soon realize it is only in his imagination, that the camera has lied. In truth he has begun to slug him, the other boys having to pull him off of Phil, who now has bloody nose. Misha runs off into the night, confused about his reactions, the future, and life itself.

     Time passes, and Misha is now attending the university, his mother querying him about his friends; it is apparent that he has now learned how to lie, telling her he has many friends of both sexes, when it’s clear that he must be terribly alone, still suffering the absence of his school friend.

     She comments that she thought she saw Phil while she was out shopping, surprised that he was back in town.

     Soon after Misha goes on a run, perhaps in search of his friend, director Vladimir Bek’s camera again tricking us with moments from the past when the two of them raced together. In reality he runs into the total darkness of the end of the film. Whether or not he finds Phil and they patch up their relationship is not revealed. But perhaps there is now, at least, hope.

    This short film reveals young Russian students speaking as openly as youths of their age might talk in the USA or any European country. But through the representation of Misha’s reactionary behavior, we see the fears of making any of that talk real remain overwhelming. And this film’s title becomes ironic as we realize that many young Russian boys like Misha are very afraid and lonely.

 

Los Angeles, September 2, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2025).