Kumar Chheda | Halfway / 2023

afraid of the sunset

by Douglas Messerli

 

Kumar Chheda (screenwriter and director) Halfway / 2023 [9 minutes]

 

Saarth and Nakul (Kumar Chheda and Kayan Dadyburjor), two young Indian men in an evidently turbulent relationship, have agreed to meet up at the entrance to Juhu Beach in Mumbai.

    Saarth, however, arrives late, with Nakul having to wait for more than a half hour. Further, Saarth is waiting at the entrance near the famed Shivaji Maharaj statue, while Nakul has been waiting at the Novotel entrance. Nakul has to get back to work quickly, and expresses his frustration as both set out to navigate the beach in opposite directions.

 

    Nakul is irritated that Saarth has not called him to check. The Novotel entrance, he argues on the phone, is the usual place they meet. But as Saarth reminds him there is no regular place since the last time they met at the beach it was a year ago.

     We soon learn that Nakul has asked Saarth to move in with him, the latter suggesting he needed time to consider it. Accordingly, both are frustrated, Nakul for the lack of an immediate response, and Saarth for Nakul’s interpretation of his reticence as a definite “no,” and perhaps an end of their relationship, particularly since the two have been dating for two years.

    Saarth simply argues that he has a lot going on, and he simply needs more time to decide. The fact that they end up at the opposite sides of the beach, he argues, says something about them as a couple.

     That’s just a miscommunication, Nakul argues; it means nothing.

     Like everything else that’s been happening, Saarth answers back.

     There is silence on the both phones before Nakul, stopped in his tracks, asks the most important question: “Do you want to be with me Saarth?”  

      Saarth is stunned by the question, arguing that if Nakul doesn’t comprehend that he has left his work and is walking now a mile to meet with him, he has nothing more to say.

      Only now they find they are each at the other entrance, having presumably missed each other in passing as they spoke on their phones.

      Saarth is willing to release Nakul and meet him at another time, knowing that his friend must get back to work. But Nakul turns finally toward the sea, commenting that, in fact, they missed the sunset as well.

       The sun, low in the sky, comes back out of the clouds, and Saarth, also now sharing the view admits “It’s beautiful.”

       “You hate it!” smiles Nakul.

       “I…I don’t hate it. I’m just scared of it for some reason.”

       “I know. I’m scared too. Feels like…something is slipping away.”

       “But do you think holding on tighter’s going to help?”

       After a long pause, Nakul answers: “We don’t see each other Saarth.”

       And finally Saarth asks the real question behind their meeting: “But do you think moving in together is really going to help?”

       Nakul doesn’t know, but jokes that at least he’ll have someone to do his laundry, Saarth replying with a laugh, that he’s not doing that!

       “I just wanted to know if you still love me,” Nakul almost pleads.

       “Of course, I still love you.”

       But then, Nakul wonders, why do we feel so far, Saarth answering “Because we are.”

       “But you know what,” Saarth continues, “I’m going to make sure that I make time so that you don’t feel like slipping away.”

       “And I’m going to talk to you more,” adds Nakul.

       They move off again, this time promising to meet halfway.

       Although, this short film is founded on the simplest of metaphors, it still remains a lovely statement of how all relationships are established and maintained, particularly that of two queer men in love, with little else to support them socially and spiritually except their own will and desires.

 

Los Angeles, October 16, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2025).

 

 

 

Will Bottone | You Free Tonight? / 2024

is it bad to be sexually free?

by Douglas Messerli

 

Will Bottone (screenwriter and director) You Free Tonight? / 2024 [15 minutes]

 I saw this short British drama several months ago, and wondered why I hadn’t yet written something about it. But I watched the same film today, I realized that I had delayed simply because there isn’t much to be said.

    Visually, it’s far superior to its rather empty plot in which a young 16-year-old boy, Archie Lewis (Jake Doyle) finds himself with a girl, El Scott (Megan Barnwell) who appears to be trying to hook him with other girls, only to perceive that her friend is more interested in boys, a fact with which Archie himself has not yet to terms.

    Looking up sites to discover whether or not he is gay, he comes across “Findrr” (a stand-in for Grindr) and begins to search out other guys on the site. His first meet-up is with a boy who claims he’s 21, but who Archie quickly realizes is several years older, the man also recognizing that Archie is younger than the 18-year-old age requirement to be on the site.

    They apparently still have sex, even though obviously it doesn’t quite answer this young boy’s needs. However, from a quick countdown of the computer clock—the equivalent to the classic movies’ representation of passing time through a montage of the pages of a wall calendar peeling away one-by-one—it becomes apparent that Archie spends a great many months on Findrr without really being able to discover anyone with whom he could fall in love.

    He shifts hook-up sites, and is now seen seated in a restaurant with a handsome young man about his age, Paul (David McGouran) who finally seems to a near-perfect match.

    When Paul excuses himself to use the toilet, however, Archie soon after follows, Paul surprised by his appearance, and when quickly realizing why he has followed, is rather outranged, scolding his date for having behaved in such a manner and cutting off all further communication. Archie has evidently been taught in his experiences with Findrr partners that sex is the aim of any date.

     In tears, Archie returns home, soulfully asking his mother (Heath Tammy) whether she believes he is a good person. Troubled by his question she sits down beside him on his bed, attempting to discover what might have happened or who led him to question his moral worth.

     Archie’s cellphone rings, however, and their conversation is interrupted. It is another Findrr client responding with the usual come-on “U look cute,” Archie answering with the same response he first received when checking out the site: “You free tonight?”

     Archie has been hooked into a kind of loop in which so many gay men discover themselves, being fulfilled sexually without any real possibility of finding someone they may come to love.

     At 78, after being now in a relationship for 55 years, I missed out entirely on the Grindr phenomenon, which I imagine has been to my benefit. But then surely not every Grindr user in the world is a blackard just out for a quick suck or fuck. Surely among all the lonely men out there desperately in search of a night with someone else, there must be someone desiring more than a quick sexual fix? But then perhaps at Archie’s age, that is precisely what he needs, allowing him to find his way through school and a few more years of independence other aspects of his being before he begins to seek out settling down with someone into a long relationship.

    This film appears to suggest, however, as do so many post-AIDS movies that having random sex is necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps it’s better, however, that Archie finds his Paul later in his life when he is mature enough to deal with the compromises and sacrifices a relationship requires.

     But these days all the movies by young gay filmmakers seem to think that boys in their final year of high school should be settling down with a permanent boyfriend—all of which reminds me of the pre-feminist position of women who were thought be undesirable and perhaps even unmarriageable by the time they reached their mid-20s.

 

Los Angeles, October 16, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2025).

Brad Hammer and John Duff | Do It / 2021

the star of your own show

by Douglas Messerli

 

John Duff (performer), Brad Hammer and John Duff (directors) Do It / 2021 [3.30 minutes] [music video]

 

Once again in his 2021 music video Do It, singer John Duff argues to let your sexuality hang out, even when you’re alone. If he seems to, at first, be addressing the lonely housewife, it quickly becomes apparent that he is arguing it for his prime audience of gay men. And his dance moves, although here primarily based on the exercise mode, in its display of jockstrap, crotch, and butt seem more aimed at a male (gay and straight) audience than a female one, although it’s obvious he wouldn’t mind if women tuned in, making it more female friendly than usual.

 

Lady

Do you think it’s that you’re crazy?

Or are you just afraid and

You’re not ready to let go?

 

Waiting.

Now you’re Over thinking reflex

Or is it that you’ve repressed,

So that they don’t see your show?

 

Although they call you names

Throw their stones, they can break

it won’t pain you the same at all

As if you never go

and you let regret take hold

You’re the lead

Now pretend that you’re alone

 

You don’t need to sleep

Just to dream the dream

Fear is in the mirror

Do it like nobody’s here

 

   But, of course, there is nobody in the rooms through which Duff shimmies in half undress. It is the year of Covid and loneliness, and what he seems to be arguing for is a kind of self-loving sexuality that permits even the gender shifts for which he often argues in his videos.

 

  Duff’s own comments surely support my view that he is not just speaking about sex, but sexuality in general:

 

"'Do It' is about overcoming the fear of perception, not dulling your shine to fit or liming your ambitions to please small minded people. It’s about actively being yourself and making choices that put you first. People have a really tough time being selfish, but there is no way to prove that you aren’t the star of the show. This could all be your dream [and] you could be making this all up. You could be the writer, director, [or] producer, so why wouldn’t you be the star in your own life?" (Duff, in an interview with Sean Abrams in Askmen).

 

Los Angeles, October 16, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2025).