Benoît Duvette | Ruines (Ruins) / 2019

a sculpture in search of a human to bring it to life

by Douglas Messerli

 

Benoît Duvette (screenwriter and director) Ruines (Ruins) / 2019 [14 minutes]

 

This French film by Benoît Duvette is about two beautiful young boys, which locates in a forest of ferns and an ancient automobile to tell us, in no uncertain terms, that despite their attraction to one another, they aren’t actually right for one another. Desire, in this case, does not, and perhaps cannot result in sexual satisfaction.

    Paul Lecomte (I presume, since the actor’s names are simply listed with no definition of character) is a slightly older and certainly more experienced boy who is also skilled at self-cutting, existing in a mystical world with a far less experienced boy (Simon Royer), who is clearly in love with the other but is far too innocent to explore the offered sexuality. As they sit in the ruin of the car they have chosen as a symbolic habitat, Paul has clearly offered to pierce Simon’s ear, which he does, with a few complications. Simon has moved during the piercing meaning that he will have a slight scar. But nonetheless he finishes the procedure, taking the earing from his own ear and placing it on Simon’s, obviously a symbol of their possible union.

     As they settle down together to sleep in the back of the car, it is clear that Simon is still not ready for or even demanding that they engage in sex.

     And here, apparently, lies the rub. We see Paul in the deep layers of the fern-covered woods drinking a bottle of wine with the intent apparently of further self-carving, while Simon wakes up and missing his would-be lover, tries desperately to swim across the lake to reach him.

       He is a slow and weak swimmer and finally survives only because of a small passing wooden raft to which he clings. Paul, meanwhile, begins peeling away the layers of skin which have been broken by previous self-carvings. He is clearly a fragile, self-destructive human being, a bit like a marble sculpture that, unlike Pygmalion, can never to fully brought to life—certainly not by the innocent Simon.

       Will Simon reach him in time to help save him. Probably not, given the difficulty he has had in simply reaching mid-lake and perhaps his subconscious knowledge the Paul is not safe territory.

       This beautifully filmed work is pure mythical hokum, but not very well thought out. But then this isn’t really meant to be a coherent narrative, but is a kind of dream story about how one boy i

s ruined by the other’s neglect, or, looking at it from another perspective, how one young boy is saved by his innocence and inability to fully represent his desire to the other.

       In any event, they’re both trapped in the ruination of a world that might have existed but was never meant to be.

       As pretty as Paul is, my bet is that Simon will better survive without him. But then, why should I care since apparently the writer/director is just intent on showing you a lost possibility of love, not a sincere gay story.

 

Los Angeles, May 8, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2026).