Harry Weston | Two Birds in a Cage / 2021

even a hug can make you queer

by Douglas Messerli

 

Harry Weston (screenwriter and director) Two Birds in a Cage / 2021 [14.30 minutes]

 

Clearly like the US, outside of the major urban areas, Australia is filled with small homophobic towns that destroy any youth who even dares to hint at anything but heterosexuality.

     This film, by Australian director Harry Weston, begins with his character Connor (Matthew Homer) in bed with a woman (Rachel Nibbs). The sex is obviously not going well, and he sits up and quickly dresses and leaves.

      His parents Mary (Kerrin J. Brown) and Rob (Daniel Lazdinis) are glad to see him home, his father even more happy to hear that he’s been with a girl. But the homophobic intolerance of Rob is made immediately apparent as he can’t even bear to hear the news of another young gay man attacked for his sexuality, getting up and taking the remote out of his son’s hand in order to turn it off.

    On his way to work, Connor runs into his best friend from childhood, Sean (Braden J. Ligertwood), riding a bike. He gives his friend a car ride, promising to pick him up that night from work. Meanwhile, it appears that Connor works for his father as a car garage mechanic, and even his being late results in taunts from the other mechanics for his having bothered to take time out for “his little buddy,” but having heard that he’s been with a girl, they respond, “So you’re not a poof after all.”

      That night when Connor picks up Sean he attempts to talk with him, but at the last moment backs out. And the next day, as the two meet up on a park bench, Sean is curious to hear what was bothering him last night.

      Finally, Connor finds the words to tell his friend from childhood that he’s gay. Sean immediately calls out “Halftime,” meaning that he’s ready to hug and relieve Connor’s fears. The two hug, but when Connor attempts to touch his leg, he quickly pulls away, explaining that he loves him too, but not that way.

      And even a hug in this hellhole, observed by neighbor, is clearly too much. At dinner, his mother tells him that his father has gone on to a pub. What he and others are actually engaged in is almost too terrible to describe as we see them grab a bicycle, obviously Sean upon it. They take him to a remote area and beat him.

        Evidently, Sean survives enough to call Connor, who rushes out to try find him via locational messaging from the sender’s phone. He discovers him, either near dead or dead—we cannot discern which, but given the time it takes the ambulance to arrive, just after daybreak, we can presume he probably hasn’t survived.

        Being even straight, as Sean apparently was, in this terrifying town doesn’t save you from being murdered as a fag. In short these two birds are locked up within the same cage even though they are not of the same feather.

        This powerful short work, however, could have dealt with some better cinemagraphic techniques: fuller lighting, framing, and camera motion all would helped make this a superior film.

 

Los Angeles, July 26, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).