Mustafa Boga | The Drama of Everyday / 2011

just waiting

by Douglas Messerli

 

Mustafa Boga (screenwriter, based on a story by Oscar Nao), Mustafa Boga (director) The Drama of Everyday / 2011 [12 minutes]

 

The intentions of this short film which the director and his team describe as an experimental work are perhaps well meant. After all, it is important to realize that violence also haunts the gay world; and in this case, evidently, the central figure of the film, Tim (C. J. Chew) waits at home for his violent partner who leaves him alone for long period of time for returning and violently beating him.

    Yet, we never see this violent man, and have utterly no idea what provokes him to such violence. Nor do we comprehend why the lover Tim waits for long periods for his return only to be rewarded with violence.

    We do observe what Tim does to fill long days of loneliness, wandering around the house in his underwear, watching sex tapes, picking up a handsome local boy Joe (James Joseph O’Boyle), masturbating, taking long baths, and cooking.

     The director, Mustafa Boga, also provides us with long stretches in which we simply stare at the nearby woods or wander them in the black and white nights of our hero Tim’s dreams.

      All of this may be very tantalizing, and at moments the cinematography is quite beautiful, but ultimately we too grow bored with the waiting—in our case for someone with a dangerous personality that we can’t even comprehend. While we may momentarily sympathize with our patient lover trapped in the domestic routine that might remind some of the companion of a sailor or worker who spends long days on the road, we also don’t get to know enough about Tim to really care. Even if we grant that his love for the missing monster is stronger than the fear, or that, just perhaps, Tim is into a bit of sadomasochism, we still don’t have enough information to have much empathy for him.

     And frankly, except for a few fames of accelerated video, which leaves only the traces of action behind, I see little here in the way of real cinematic experimentation unless the experiment lies in a kind of test of just how patient a viewer might be for a story to unfold.

     I liked the music, but I was ready to turn off the film long before it was over, particular since this director hasn’t yet learned how to properly adjust the levels of his sound so that we might clearly hear the few words of narrative our central character utters.

     In this case the drama of the everyday, so absolutely brilliant in a work such as Chantal Ackerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles of 1975, becomes in this 2011 short British film, simply a matter of ennui. This character is not waiting for a Godot, just a brute to share his bed.

 

Los Angeles, December 5, 2025 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).