the fortress crumbles
by Douglas Messerli
Sharlin Lucia and Madita Rutten (screenplay),
Sharlin Lucia (director) In einem moment (In a Moment) / 2019 [17 minutes]
The coming of age gay short by German director
Sharlin Lucia is certainly not original. Like so many other films of its kind,
a young school boy, Max (Björn Jochum) arrives at a new school with fear and
trepidation. But here he is met by several students willing to be his friends,
including Anna (Juliane Selesnew) and a young basketball player, Leon (Aaron
Rufer). Although Anna seems to be an all too ready girlfriend, it is the beauty
of Leon that most strikes Max, as it does apparently all of the girls in school
in well.
For
Max, his sudden gut response to Leon’s open friendship is immediately
confusing, especially when Anna tells him that Leon’s “not into girls.” At
home, later in the week, he can hardly eat a meal, while his macho father
(Christoph Nitz) drills him about whether he’s met any interesting girls yet,
suggesting that by his age he had already had several female relationships.
Max’s mother (Stefanie Renk) reminds him that his father, who has by
this left the table for the TV soccer game, is just boasting. “You know how he
is?” He didn’t have a girlfriend until he was 17, she consoles him. “You’ll
find the right girl when the time comes,” she further tortures him with her
reassurances. Max hurries off to bed.
In
the meanwhile, Leon has invited him to play three-man basketball with another
friend, an invitation which Max willingly accepts. Remarkably, Max is not at
all an incompetent sportsman, stealing the ball at one point and putting the
ball through the hoop at another moment. More importantly, he actually makes
physical contact with the handsome Leon, who readily pushes back, the two
temporarily falling to the ground with Leon, on the top of him, about ready to plant
a kiss upon Max’s lips before the friend calls out, “Are we hear to make out or
play ball.” Suddenly Max pulls away and reports he has to go home, leaving Leon
a bit confused.
But
obviously, it is Max who is confused, taking a long shower as he replays the
scene with Leon over in his mind, finally producing a wry smile upon his face.
In
the next scene, he has evidently just played the song for Anna in his bedroom,
who suggests its truly a beautiful work, but adds: “Do your parents know?” If
nothing else, we now know that this song is for Leon.
Bravely, Max’s parents in attendance, he performs the song at the school
event, a quite lovely musical work about how he has long protected himself in a
fortress but with the love of someone he’s met can now leave it and join the
world—composed by the film’s cinematographer (and evidently makeup artist) Paul
Schiefelbein. It is this gentle “coming out” song that really makes this film
somewhat different, similar to the country western performer Will Worthington’s
revelation in the TV series Nashville of his gay sexuality through
music.
His school mates enthusiastically applaud the song and its message,
which emboldens Max to walk down from the stage and shyly kiss Leon in front of
his peers and parents both. Max’s mother smiles in pride and even her husband
can’t help but share a reluctant grin.
Numerous other films have shown us far darker pictures of LGBTQ
sexuality in high school halls and locker rooms—just yesterday I watched a
locker room murder in a short film in which the boys had loved each other since
their childhoods. And above I comment on the far more difficult coming out
film, Fag. But we need more of this far gentler kind of cinematic
depiction to remind us that discovering one’s sexual identity to be queer does
not have to result in emotional trauma.
Los Angeles, January 19, 2021
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog and
World Cinema Review (January 2021).
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