by Douglas Messerli
Leo Adef (director) The Other Side / 2017 [5 minutes]
At least the Leo Adef self-described 5-minute “trailer” The Other Side does exactly describe itself as an LGBTQ movie. What it does feature is clothes by Saint Laurent, which makes it a bit more like a fashion add pretending to be a cinema narrative.
Yet its faux narrative of a French boy having just arrived in
Berlin—probably because of difficulties back home (at one point actor Paul
Manniez complains that he feels at times that “no one understands” him)—who is
suddenly befriended by a posse of several boys and one girl, certainly attempts
to suggest that we are entering gay territory. More than “just friends,” these
kids remind me of the young men who met the boys just off the train in Prague,
who pull the newcomers quickly into the porn industry. I guess the porno here
is replaced by the chic gay fashionistos who pretend not to be fashion
conscious. A blue denim coat off the girl’s bod, is the perfect accessory for
the new boy in town.
The Barcelona-based director describes his works as being less like
films than they are “windows into a story...discovered by chance.” But clearly
his “windows,” which also include the very short films Timeless, Summer
of Love, and Vamp, along with this 2017 work, a collaboration with Hercules
Magazine, strongly hint at their gay-orientation. Even if, as he states,
this particular film is “far removed from his usual focus on sexuality,” it
doesn’t stray too far in its gay-bar like location the boys grouped together in
constant hugs. And an interview with the director argues:
“Adef's work at large has created a
complex dialogue about identity, but he’s also created a new reality for
himself. Far-removed from an adolescence he spent holding back. Adef has turned
his lens on the young people celebrating themselves in all their queer glory.
‘I was repressing all my feelings,’ he said. ‘That’s why I think that all these
ideas in my films are fantasies of what I could have lived if I would have been
free to live and express my desires.’
The skinny, well-dressed kids who take Jack to a bar and into a bed
where they are all gathered almost naked appears to suggest a gay polyamorous
community where the young lost boy, who has come from “the other side,” has now
found a home among friends.
What that friendship might mean for
more than one night of heavy drinking, drugs, and music is not explained. The
brief clip ends with our hero undressing and jumping into a pool of water as if
clean away the night before, or maybe to baptize himself into his new life.
Yet despite its “come on,” this short
film is all glitz and no action. We have no better idea whether or not these
Saint Laurent boys are gay than we might know whether the cute 20-some year-old
sports boys in an L. L. Bean or the dreamy hunks in a Male International
Catalogue share each other’s bed after the shoot. And even though we know these
boys and one girl do share a bed we’re not sure whether or not it’s for sex and
just posing, although a couple of the boys quickly rise up to pull Paul into
their sweaty presence.
I have to report, accordingly, that The
Other Side, as pretty as it may be, is a meaningless and empty romp. A hug
round the neck does not define family or even a gay relationship where I come
from. And without that, there seems to be no tale to be told other than our
momentary voyeuristic pleasure.
Los Angeles, May 2, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema
Review (May 2022).
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