postponement
by Douglas Messerli
Mario Galaretta (screenwriter and director) Alonso's Deadline / 2007 [6
minutes]
It is simply by coincidence, by fascinating to me
nonetheless, that one day after finishing viewing the 1979 French melodrama Confused
Feelings—a tale about an elderly professor of the early part of the 20th
century falling hopelessly in love with a handsome young student without
finding a way until it is too late to tell him of his love—that I should come
across Mario Galaretta’s 2007 short film about a professor of neuroscience, recently
widowed so the film unobtrusive reveals through a funeral announcement sitting
on his desk. As in the earlier film, this man is similarly unable to express his
latent sexual attraction to a person of lower rank, in this case a school janitor.
This
professor, Dr. Alonso (Glen Caspill), is a stickler for keeping all deadlines,
refusing the excuses of one of his pupils (Pedro Salrach) early in this work
for not having been able to print out his required paper by its due date. Without
even hearing the student’s explanation of a computer glitch, he basically fails
the would-be doctor by rejecting his explanations: “As you know…every deadline
is absolutely final.”
Yet, much
to his own surprise, he has slowly been observing the comings and goings of the
handsome young janitor (Bradly Mena), who while working not only often catches
Alonso’s eye, but himself stares back with an almost flirtatious mien, at one
moment while the professor is lecturing, taking out several moments to stare
into the window to the doorway wherein the professor is describing the tiny brain membrane that evolved in mankind
to develop neurons that account of his brain development. His stare temporarily
interrupts the doctor’s train of thought.
A couple of
times in this film we watch Alonso staring through the blinds of his window as
the janitor arrives for work. Another time he makes several trips around the
spot where the hunky worker is scrubbing the floor so that the boy might offer
him his friendly facial greeting.
He stays
later and later into the evening so that he remains at his desk with the
janitor enters his office to empty the waste paper baskets. At one point he
seems about to speak, but misses the opportunity, only to finally speak up and
call him back: “Excuse me….”
The janitor
turns back, facing him once again with his more that friendly smile, and for a
pregnant moment we wonder what Alonso will finally say, but only a vague
greeting issues from his mouth: “Have a good evening.”
The
janitor responds: “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
But we
are certain that when tomorrow arrives the professor will once again miss his
own deadline to express his feelings for the young man. Given the gap between
their age, social positions, and possible intelligence, to say nothing of their
same-sex genders, he are certain that, like the professor in Confused
Feelings that the next day he will again miss the deadline to admit his
attraction or love of another human being until it will be too late and
meaningless to express it.
In the century
that has passed between these similar attractions and even within 28 years
between the release of these two similarly-themed films, nothing has truly
altered. No matter of the level of their mental capacities they are afraid of
breaking down the barriers that stand between their confessions of their sexual
desires and attendant emotions.
Los Angeles, November 20, 2025
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November
2025).
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