Daniel Guarda | Naquele Dia Escur (That Dark Day) / 2022

caring in society that won’t

by Douglas Messerli

 

Daniel Guarda (screenwriter and director) Naquele Dia Escuro (That Dark Day) / 2022 [29 minutes]

 

At the beginning of Brazilian director’s Daniel Guarda highly moving short drama, That Dark Day presents a day on which it seems the world might end. Jair Bolsonaro is in power in Brazil and Trump in the White House when on that day in 2019 when a city councilor Victor is taken away by car in São Paulo and presumably shot, at 3:00 the sky dark because of a meteorological phenomenon and smoke from forest fires along the Amazon highway.

      The movie then shifts to the aftermath focusing on a young trans man, Fabio (Miguel Filpi) who works as a caregiver, now focusing on an elderly woman near death, Louise (Isabelle Lenoble). Gently he daily cares for her as he silently grieves the end of his own relationship with who we later discover was the gay man Victor e Felipe (Athos Souza), the same one who has been taken away to be shot by Brazilian rightist vigilantes.

      Little by little as he shares an exercise regimen and small meals with her, she opens up about her own upbringing, and particularly her loneliness from the fact that her three well-off children all live in her native France and seldom come to visit her in Brazil. Her own relationship with her husband has been unhappy. But now with Fabio, she begins to open up sharing both her sorrows and joys of her quickly disappearing life.

   Fabio, in turn, begins to tell her of his own life, how we was adopted by a loving couple but who left him alone much of the time, while he, himself, feeling that he was a boy trapped in a young girl’s body with no one to talk to about it, and those days, no computer to rush to in order see if others felt as you did.

     A gay parade finally awoke him to his identity, as he suddenly determined to go through the process of transforming himself and his body into the handsome young hirsute man he is today.

     In the background of their gentle and loving conversations is a society that is increasingly hostile to sexual, political, and cultural differences (much like in the US), where transgender children like him must now for years before getting medical help because of governmental cuts to such programs. Victor had clearly been working for further LGBTQ+ representation in a society made of cis gender heterosexuals who have no patience for their voices in society, ideas parroted by a taxi driver in a car in which Fabio is riding to work.

     The picture ends, inevitably, with a call from Louise’s daughter Claire to tell him that her mother has died, and in the last scene we see that Fabio has now inherited Louise’s dog.

      That Dark Day is not only a lovely movie about two desperately lonely souls coming together to heal and comfort one another, but as the director himself describes it, “talks about social control and repression, gender censorship, and sexual orientation reinforced by power structures (and their consequences)….The short also reinforces discussions on discrimination, moral judgment, and psychological violence caused by heteronormativity which, in turn, suggests and elaborates behavioral patterns within social structures. That Dark Day entertains while speaking about cultural habits, deconstructs taboos and prejudice, and connects the viewer to different realities in divergent fields.”

      This truly melancholy and lovely movie won the “Silver Rabbit” award as the Audience’s Choice for the Best Brazilian Short Film Festival of Diversity Culture in 2022.

 

Los Angeles, December 8, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2024).

Mark Pluck | Hornbeam / 2022

strangers in love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Daniel Lane (screenplay), Mark Pluck (director) Hornbeam / 2022 [16 minutes]

 

Two middle-aged men (Daniel Lane and Christopher Sherwood) meet up in a rural English parking lot, driving a short ways to have gay sex. The latter discerns immediately that the first is a gardener and presumes that he’s snuck away his wife and kids. He admits that he is living with his parents.

     But he is also a difficult lover, immediately commenting on the other’s bad breath. And soon after the driver of the red van takes the rider (Sherwood) back to the lot, he apologizing for “wasting” the other’s time.

      Hereafter, since the characters are not given names, I’ll refer to the first man as the driver, the more difficult other as the rider.

     The two meet up again, despite the failure of previous night, the next evening, the driver suggesting that the other simply seemed like a nice guy. They talk a little, the fussier rider making it clear that he’s closeted, still presuming that his friend is married. Just as they begin kissing a car drives up behind them, flashing its lights, the rider presuming the driver has brought him to an “dogging” area, a public place where others can watch sex or participate with a third party.

     The rider, terrified of the situation, demands they leave immediately, the driver suggesting that they tease the doggers a bit, flash their own lights back. Indeed, their car won’t start right off, which further frightens our rider, but eventually they move away.

      At least, they have something now to share, to laugh about. And they determine to meet up again the next night, our rider insisting however the driver not take him again to the alley where they encountered the “doggers.”

      On the next occasion our rider finally asks the driver about his gardening talents. He explains that his grandfather was a gardener who worked for a large estate and taught him as a child all the Latin names of the plants. When the rider points to trees nearby, the gardener immediately describes them as pinus spetalis or hornbeams, a European species of the North American beech tree. The driver even sings a song about his “Johnny” who he doesn’t want to forget him very soon.

      It now appears that their meetings are becoming quite regular, and they are discovering new things about one another. The rider can’t believe that his friend has chosen to listen to classical music, something only old people or his schoolboy friends do. Suddenly he becomes convinced that his friend must be a Tory. “I can’t believe I’ve been kissing a Tory boy!”

      The so-called “Tory boy” retorts back that he hadn’t known that he’s been kissing a “champagne socialist.”

      Later, after apparently having made love, the two are sitting together, the driver asking if the rider would dare to hold his hand in public. To his surprise, the hesitant rider says he could, that he might have a drink or two first, but he might. It is the most gentle and loving moment of this short film, the only time when the two have not been on the move, so to speak, getting to know each other almost the way a rider in a taxi or rented car might get to know the life of his driver over a long voyage.

      Driving either later that night or on another meet-up, the gardener explains he seems to have obtained his first garden designing job. And he suggests that they get something it eat.

      Back at the parking lot, the rider suddenly admits he really likes the other, but realizes, he argues, that it’s all a bit ridiculous, that this is as far as their relationship can go since the other is married.

     There is a pause as the driver slowly reveals that he is not married. “You assumed I was, and, I don’t know, I just didn’t say anything.” He further admits he’s in a relationship with another guy.

      The rider leaves the car and walks over to ocean near where they’ve stopped. Eventually the driver joins him, now admitting that he’s been in the relationship for 12 years or so, but hints it just isn’t meaningful anymore. He can’t just leave his friend, he explains, because “I guess I don’t want to break his heart.”

       The illicit lovers hug one another good-bye. And the next night the driver waits once more with his van. His friend understandably does not show up and when he calls up his rider, the phone in now hooked to a machine that reports he is no longer available.

        The presumptions that both of these men have made about one another were mistaken and destroyed any love that might have helped them to turn their meetings into a true relationship. It is as if they truly had been speaking different languages, living in different worlds, separated by conflicting cultures.

        Mark Pluck’s quiet and subtle film was nominated for an Iris Award.

 

Los Angeles, November 11, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2023).

Ben Ogunbiyi | A Walk / 2022

 work first

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jacob Meadows (screenplay), Ben Ogunbiyi (director) A Walk / 2022 [4.15 minutes]

 

British director Ben Ogunbiyi along with screenwriter Jacob Meadows created this short encounter between two gay lovers, Thom (Meadows) and Seb (Vincent Rosec) apparently in a weekend.

      There is very little “story” here, but the major “event” of the film is devastating to one of the gay lovers and will probably end the relationship. Nothing is resolved and no explanations are given. We simply see the two men, Thom and Seb, beginning to enjoy their day together. Thom has evidently just bought a couple Heinekens as they take a walk. But something, Thom feels, is being held back, Seb being slow to even crack open his beer, as well as being quieter than usual. Thom stops in their tracks and holds on to tell Seb that he loves him.

      When Seb replies that there people around, Thom pulls back, realizing something is up, asking once more, “What’s going on?”

       Seb finally tells him that the promotion he has been waiting for has been offered to him.

       Thom is delighted, excited with the fact, but there are suddenly qualifications. Seb has been asked to move to Paris. Temporarily taken aback, Thom is still delighted with the news and suggests that they go out for dinner talk about it, weighing the pros and cons.

        But Seb reports that he has, in fact, already accepted the job, encouraging Thom to join him. Thom replies that his entire life is “here,” presumably London. And when he asks about the transfer date, Thom reports that it’s the very next week. Finally, as he assimilates the news, he asks Seb when he found out, Thom reporting a week ago.

         Suddenly everything strikes him, not only has his lover kept the information from him, but has planned the move without even consulting him. His suggestion that Thom join him, repeated, is simply a hollow one since everything has been decided without him being involved in any manner.

         Thom insists that he needs some space, and when Seb hovers near somewhat apologetically, he commands he leave him, that the other get away, move off.

          As I mentioned, there is no resolve. We do not see Thom thinking over the events further. Actually, what has happened has been made quite clear. And the film ends before we can observe the pain Thom surely suffers over simply being abandoned by the man he thought he loved. Seb’s immediate response of “Work first,” says it all, we perceiving just how selfish he is, forcing us to sympathize with Meadows’ character.

          Even if Thom were to suddenly find it possible to leave his work and life behind in Britain and move to France on a few days’ notice, we realize that the love between them is now over.

          That Ogunbiyi, with Meadows’ brilliant writing and acting, have conveyed all of this in something close to 4 minutes is truly amazing, and suggests the talent that might go in to making a longer short or even feature film.

 

Los Angeles, January 29, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2022).

Dan Fry | My Son’s Best Mate / 2022

the coward

by Douglas Messerli

 

Dan Fry (screenwriter and director) My Son’s Best Mate / 2022 [10.20 minutes]

 

In another of the movies Australian filmmaker Dan Fry describes as his homemade films—most of these not even listed on IMDb—Fry plays an errant father who has been having sex with his university son’s best friend, Carlos (whose face we never see).

     It isn’t that he hasn’t been in a moral crisis of sorts which he has even shared with his lover, but the younger boy doesn’t see anything wrong with it and—well what older man can resist younger, muscular flesh so freely offered up to him.

      To ease his sense of guilt, the father spends most of his time in this film recording a computer video message to his son Michael in an attempt to explain his and Carlos’ relationship. The first thing he has to make clear, obviously, is why he and Michael’s mother were divorced. Although it has been hard for their son, neither parent ever provided a reason, evidently to comprehend their break up. He now admits to having lived a lie most of his life.

      Another scene between the man and his lover intrudes upon the videotaping as Carlos seems hardly able to keep his hands off the older man, who keeps attempting to tell him that he’s got some work to do.

      Continuing with the video, the father finally announces to his son that he’s gay, and that’s why he had leave Michael’s mother. And, he adds, he also has a thing for younger boys in their 20s. He doesn’t feel necessary guilty for that however, explaining that there are so many heterosexual politicians who have young girls on their arms all the time. “I just need to tell you because I don’t know how you’d feel about that, and uhhhh….”

      The film cuts again, leaving out, of course, the real reason why this man might feel some fear of a break in his relationship with his son if not with his own moral scruples. Indeed, in the very next scene we see the older man and Carlos in his bedroom having sex while in the next room, apparently, the narrator’s son is sleeping. He begs the boy to be quiet, obviously hoping to keep the relationship a secret.

      Indeed, this time Fry as director offers up an entire collage of sex scenes between the two of them using various cinematic experimental devices, including a spectral rainbow overlay outlining their hand-holding and various shots in slow-motion shot through different screens to indicate their sexual ecstasy.

      Finally, back at the video, he admits that he’s been sleeping with Carlos. And although Carlos has thought it best to keep the relationship a secret, the father feels he must be honest, at last, with his son. “I don’t think it’s right to keep it a secret from you.”

      As the father finally admits that throughout his life he’s been a coward and that he no longer wants to be one, Fry splits the screen into three, one showing the father posing at an attempt to look more fit and younger that he is, described as “The Fantasy”; the second with an image of the always faceless Carlos described as “The Reality”; and third with him, bare-chested and almost in tears described as “The Truth.” No one has ever accused Fry as being a subtle director.

      He plans to talk it over and if his son cannot accept it, he insists, he’ll stop the relationship, wanting nothing to come between dad and son.

      But just a few problems still remain: for one the relationship with the son’s best friend has already occurred and is still ongoing; even if the father were to stop seeing Carlos, it is still a difficult reality for a young college boy to digest about his father along with the fact that he’s just discovering that his father is gay. Secondly, he has chosen to first send a disembodied voice to reveal the truth, refusing to face up to his son in person. Whether or not they really meet up face to face to “discuss” the matter, the subject has been rolled out before the boy without any being behind it to further explain or react to his son’s emotional response.

     If the father has chosen not to be a coward any longer, he has certainly gone about by proving just how cowardly he still is.

     It’s hard to tell how writer/director Fry perceives his own character: does he truly see him as a man attempting to finally speak the truth or is he aware that the man is still hiding behind a screen instead of in a closet? If I were this man’s son, I’d find it more than a little difficult to forgive a father who had dished me out lies all my life and hadn’t the gumption to drive himself over to “uni” to speak to me as a real person. I also might wonder, is Carlos a kind of “replacement” for the older man’s sexual desires for me as his son. And then there’s the little matter of my best friend’s betrayal. The film seems to be heading into far more dangerous territory without really knowing it.

 

Los Angeles, October 12, 2023

 

Tómas Arnar Þorláksson | Niðrí Bæ (Downtown) / 2022

spurned love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tómas Arnar Þorláksson (screenwriter and director) Niðrí Bæ (Downtown) / 2022 [35 minutes]

 

Icelandic director Tómas Arnar Þorláksson’s film Dowtown is one of the best short films I’ve seen in 2022. Although the plot is quite simple and somewhat predictable, the film’s beauty, pacing, and acting is excellent.

    The story involves three friends, Sigga (Natalía Gunnlaugsdóttir), Viktor (Baldur Einarsson), and Friðrik (Mikael Kaaber) who plan a wild night on the town, beginning with drinking even as they are being driven to the club where they plan to party. Viktor, an experienced drinker who has just returned to Reykjavík is already sick and vomiting, while Friðrik seems deep in thought. Meanwhile Sigga simply chatters keeping up a party like atmosphere and attempting to keep her two young male companions, evidently longtime friends, in two.

     Both seem to be heterosexual, Friðrik unable to stop talking about a girl he’s met during the summer while Viktor was away. Since the relationship ended badly, Sigga is sick and tired of Friðrik talking about it. Viktor snaps good-looking women along the way, as they get out and walk so that Viktor can also freely vomit along route.

    By the time they get into the club, Viktor is drunk that he hugs Friðrik, telling him that he loves him, and explaining that he will have to look after him feeling the way he does. Sigga, who appears to be experimenting with lesbianism jokes that it looks like her two hetero friends are going to make out in the club even before she can find a female friend.

     But Viktor soon has to the bathroom, while Friðrik goes to the bar to get Sigga and himself of couple of tequila shots. By the time he gets back to the table, however, everything has changed. We’ve watched Viktor come back downstairs, go outside and accidently discharge vomit over the club’s front window, the bouncer disallowing his return. And Sigga seems already to have met up with a female friend.

 

    Friðrik consumes the two tequila’s himself before going on search for his friend Viktor. But as he passes through the dance floor he runs into a girl who has been an old friend Stella (Sigurbjörg Nanna Karlsdóttir), who insists he dance. Since, through a door he spots the woman with whom he had had the summer affair, Bella (Kolbrún María Másdóttir), with another man he decides to dance with the other female acquittance in order to make her jealous.

     Stella is definitely a sex fiend, insisting that they go into the alley where she kisses him and wants to give him cocaine and a blow-job, all of which Friðrik resists, but she is near relentless.

      Even worse, she’s spotted by her current boyfriend, a ruffian, Tommi, who believes that Friðrik and his girlfriend are engaging in sex, and with his two buddies beats up the resistant boy, leaving him for dead.

     Sigga finally discovers him, brings him back to life and insists she’ll call her brother to drive him home. But, of course, Friðrik has still not discovered where Viktor has disappeared to and insists on going in further search. Sigga believes he’s gone off with the football friends to another party, and they head off in the direction where the party’s being held.

      On route, however, in a scene that does challenge our ability to believe in this plot, Friðrik is almost in hit by a car in which riding his summer girlfriend and her boyfriend. The couple stop and get out to see if he is all right, and Friðrik in total anger tells her off, explaining that he cannot get her out of his mind and wishes he could hate her for what he did to him, but continues to be unable to forget their affair. When Bella tells him that since their break up, she hasn’t thought about Friðrik at all, Sigga comes forward slugs the ex-girlfriend in the face, before running off, with Friðrik following soon after.

      If the film might seem by this time to have lost all credulity, it attempts to explain the odd behavior of everyone by mentioning that there is a full moon shining down on them. And as the movie hints, Reykjavík, despite its clubs and large music scene, is still a small city where nearly everyone knows one another.

      The couple on the run finally reach the other party, and Friðrik insists to Sigga that this time when he finds Viktor, he will finally speak with him, Sigga waiting outside seemingly knowing what information he wants to share with his best friend.

       One surely might have guessed by this time, that the girl friends, the drinking, and other drugs have all be a ruse on Friðrik’s part. When he finds Viktor, they meet up in the bathroom where he finally explains that while Viktor was away he had actually made the realization that he loves him, not just as a best friend, but as a gay man. Viktor retorts that he too loves Friðrik, but can’t return the kind of love his friend is seeking. It’s too bad because we would have made a good couple, he argues, but I just don’t have those kinds of feelings. 

      So Friðrik’s love is spurned once more, a beautifully sad song by composer (Kristján Sturla Bjarnason) playing as Sigga drives him back home, the camera focusing on actor Kaaber’s lovely face.

     

Los Angeles, March 7, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March 2025).