the charm
by Douglas Messerli
Arthur Cahn (screenwriter and director) Herculanum / 2016 [21
minutes]
There is something about Arthur Cahn’s short film Herculanum
that is so very simple and pure that it seems almost elegant.
Léo (Arthur Cahn) as made an appointment to
meet up with Marc (Jérémie Elkaïm). They find that they have a few things in
common, Marc being original from Strasbourg where Léo’s grandmother runs a
bakery, which Marc remembers from his youth.
They like what they see and quickly get down
to a wonderful experience of sex in which Léo cums on Marc’s chest. As Marc
showers, Léo wanders the apartment, liking what he sees. And soon after Léo suggesting
that they meet up again.
Marc is
perfectly agreeable to another encounter, but explains that he will be
traveling for a short while to Norway with his boyfriend. Even though Marc has
mentioned that he has a lover on his Grindr page, someone Léo has missed it,
and there is a clear sense of disappointment in the fact.
Yet,
nothing dramatic occurs here. It is not even that Léo, who later admits that he
is not unhappy as a single being, only that he misses certainly shared
experiences, like going shopping on Sundays.
And the
couple get together one more time, this time sharing a bed for the night. In
the dark they each share their vocations, Marc being a writer, and Léo being a
Paris tour guide for Italians.
It also
comes out that Marc has broken up with a lover even though they were soon to
have gone away on a trip to the Pompei region, he having even purchased a suite
to surprise his ex-lover.
Léo, whose father is Italian, had once
guided people around Pompei and Herculaneum, the later the better preserved of
the Vesuvius disaster spots. In Herculaneum, couples were killed in a matter of
minutes as a cloud of fire spread out over the city. He and his female friend had
imagined histories and names for some of the preserved couples killed in the
disaster.
Marc imagines
how if today a volcano like Vesuvius were suddenly to overtake the city, that
they too might be seen as a couple, spooning in the dark. Léo cuddles up to
Marc in the “spoon” position as they fall asleep.
We have no
way of telling whether or not this affable couple might find themselves as a
couple. It doesn’t matter. They enjoy one another’s company and sexual
companionship. Yet, of course, Marc’s statement has imagined them as a couple,
and perhaps they might take on the role in real life as well. But there is not
certainty in anyone’s future. And in the recognition of that that fact, this
couple save themselves the drama of the desperate desires of young lovers.
These are adults, open to what might happen, without enforcing imaginary scenarios
upon their own lives.
But the very
fact that such calm and reasonable figures have found one another, is a kind of
miracle in a world in which most individuals make impossible demands.
Los Angeles, March 8, 2026
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (March
2026).
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