Marco Berger | Una última voluntad (Last Wish) / 2007

kiss of death

by Douglas Messerli

 

Marco Berger (screenwriter and director) Una última voluntad (Last Wish) / 2007 [10 minutes]

 

In over 12 short films and features over the last couple of decades, Argentine director and writer Marco Berger has never ceased to provide wonderfully subtle narratives scored with stunningly beautiful images about gay and LGBTQ+ life.

     I’d argue that he is one of the most underrated of contemporary gay filmmakers, who ought to be included in the pantheon of contemporary queer directors I listed elsewhere in these pages.

      Even in his earliest film, Last Wish (2007), you can already sense his mastery. Creating a black-and-while wartime-like film, Berger suggests a kind of terrible timelessness when opposing sides kill their enemies and traitors on site, gathering up a thin line of privates to aim and fire without pity.

      The only rule of honor that reminds these men of real civilization is their quite meaningless ability to grant the about to be murdered man his last request. The General (Oscar Alegre) asks the condemned man (Manuel Vignau) “What is your last wish.”

      After a short pause, he answers, “un beso” (“a kiss”).

      “Can this be possible?” asks El General, utterly confused even by such a request.

      His assistant (Leonardo Azamor) simply repeats that it is the condemned man’s last wish.

      The general walks over the prisoner. “I don’t think that is possible.”

    “El Condenado,” however, here argues that without the fulfillment of his wish there can be no execution.

      The general asks his assistant to check the rules and regulations, which he does, repeating that the prisoner has rights for one, and only one, last wish. Moreover, he not only has the right to that wish but, “2,” they must carry it out to the best of their ability, and “3,” “the wish must not consume the maximum time of 5 minutes.” There are further restrictions, but it ends by saying that the last wish cannot be negated.

      But who on the firing squad will kiss him. One soldier suggests that they draw straws. A box of matches is tossed out, and a lit match is put to the other end of the box. Three men draw, each with fairly large matches left intact, but the fourth accepts his fate, appearing to toss, like the others, the match over his head.

      The handsome selected soldier (Lucas Ferraro) hands his rifle to the assistant and approaches the prisoner, and, as the others turn their heads away, plants a long, full kiss on the condemned man’s lips.

      He returns to the firing squad. The command is given, and we observe that his gun does not go off, while the others shoot, killing the condemned man.

      The “selected man” stands alone as the others walk off, one kicking the body to make sure it is dead. After all the others have left, he reaches into his pocket, revealing a match that looks in length to be very similar to the others. It’s clear it is no longer or shorter than the others, but that he has purposely selected to reward the kiss on the soon-to-die man’s lips.

       There is nothing else to say. We do not know the dead man’s crime; we do not know whether he was a traitor, an infiltrator, or simply an enemy caught on the run. We know nothing of the man’s relationship to the others, not even to the man who selected himself to provide the dead man’s last wish.

       All we know is that in this forest, a condemned man asked for and was rewarded a kiss before death, a kind of reversal of the Snow White myth. His kiss has assured his death, but perhaps will remain in the memory of man who kissed him for the rest of his life, strangely resulting in a kind life after death.

 

Los Angeles, November 10, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2023).