Eldar Rapaport | Little Man / 2012

the neighbor above

by Douglas Messerli

 

Etgar Keret, Eldar Rapaport, and Dalit Ziv (screenplay, based on a story of Etgar Keret), Eldar Rapaport (director) Little Man / 2012 [23 minutes]

 

Elliot (Daniel Boys) is a hopeless romantic, so he claims, but as the first sex partner, Tim (Jamie Thompson) observes, he “likes to mess things up,” becoming distracted, for example, by noises coming from the apartment above while in the midst of sex. At almost 30, Elliott evidently has a history of very short-term relationships, despite his desire for something more long-lasting.  

  On top of Elliot’s own problems, his brother Ryan (David Hempstead) shows up at his doorstep, claiming his heterosexual relationship is over.

      The brothers together again, however, bring back some unpleasant memories about their father and his attempts to pit his two boys against each other that may reveal some of Elliot’s latent problems, and Ryan’s as well. Elliot, in fact, blames his father, imagining that he breaks up with guys on purpose just to feel pain.

       Yet Elliot is back to the bar again and picks up another handsome trick. But this time as they go at it in the taxi back home, he’s interrupted by the attentions of the cab driver who suddenly engages him in a conversation that arouses his anger, ruining the meet-up once again. The cabbie has made the presumption that so many people have, that gay men willingly choose to go home with someone different every night.

      He gets out and leaves his cute date behind.

     Earlier when Tim left him, we noticed a Little Man (Darren Evans) quickly leave Elliot’s apartment building and get into a car. Now as Elliot returns home we notice the same well-dressed, younger version of Elliot also entering the car. Could he be the upstairs neighbor? The one who makes all the noise?

       Elliot determines just to check it out, knocking at the door before entering the apartment, 2A, only to discover a wall covered with pictures of his numerous temporary boyfriends, their voices lightly reverberating from the walls.

       Suddenly the Little Man returns, pasting up a picture of the newest date who Elliot’s just left in the taxi. Who is he, screams the tortured Elliot, some sort of stalker? The Little Man claims he’s just trying to help him, that he’s the one who gets him a date every night; they’re just not his sort. Elliot arguing that it’s he who’s fucking it all up. He beats him severely, blood pooling from his head, forcing Elliot to realize he has killed the “little man”—the childhood version of himself, forced to feel that no one is good for him, that he has no right for love.

      He wraps the body in a bag, throwing up in disgust of his act. He washes himself endlessly in the shower and tries to sleep.

     In the morning, while speaking with his brother, he hears noises the apartment above. Checking, he sees that movers are bringing in new boxes. For a moment, he is tempted to go up to 2A to check out who might have moved in this suddenly, but turns back to his flat.

      We see a handsome man open the door and deposit a box of the photos of Elliot’s old lovers outside the door, obviously to be thrown out.

       Has Elliot destroyed his past demons, truly laid them to rest. That is for another film to tell us. Or whatever our imaginations want to conjure up.

 

Los Angeles, May 14, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2024).