dark impulse
by Douglas Messerli
Tom Goss (music, lyrics, and
performance), Nathaniël Siri (director) Berlin / 2019 [4.20 minutes]
[music video]
Just two years after that nice boy
fell for the Preacher’s son in Son of a Preacher Man (2016), gay crooner
Tom Goss goes slumming in Berlin at a party frequented mostly by transsexual
males in female drag, circus performers, and other sleazy-looking business men.
The only nice person in the room is a rather beefy black man (Rohan McCooty) with
whom he quickly hooks up and takes off, leaving all of the other “strangers”
for what was apparently a pleasant night, week, or whatever time he spent away
from his lover.
At least according to the song, Rohan was precisely the kind of stranger
he was looking for in the gay Berlin he was attracted to, and which he just
couldn’t resist.
The moon and the steeple
cast shadows underneath.
An impulse far too strong
to keep away from me.
Oh, Berlin.
Oh, Berlin.
Oh, Berlin.
Oh, Berlin.
A life fully valued.
A heart truly seen.
It's funny how strangers
can be what you need.
Playing
with the Weimar notion of the German capital city, Goss explores his dark side
in this short video, both him and Rohan having a brief affair despite the fact
that they have lovers at home. But somehow it satisfies something that he was
seeking, and perhaps he returns with a renewed sense of his own being. The
song, with its wailing chorus of “Oh, Berlin,” almost sounds like a nostalgic
view of something now gone and forbidden, a past he never before has explored
but now found momentarily fulfilling. I have to say there is something
hauntingly naughty about this truly interesting video.
Memories fading
alone in 6A.
I fly home to my man
and you to yours the same.
Oh, Berlin.
Oh, Berlin.
Oh, Berlin.
Oh, Berlin.
It’s something you have to listen to a couple of times before it too
begins to take you into a world between “the moon and the steeple,” the impulse
you cannot somehow deny.
The boy from Illinois and Wisconsin has grown into a man of the world.
Los Angeles, May 8, 2026
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(May 2026).
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