the difference of the viewer’s position
by
Douglas Messerli
Lucas
Morales (screenwriter and director) Rendez-vous avec Diego (Date with
Diego) / 2021
[53
minutes]
Noah
(Cédric Gueugnon) is gay and out, yet he hasn’t had sex or even met up with
anyone he might like, and his friend Lou (Flore Destieu) insists as a
17-year-old about turn 18 it’s time to join an on-line gay dating group—a more
youthful version of Grindr—and stop being a virgin.
Noah is still unsure about the whole
thing, but Lou swears that her brother is “on a sex run,” and she immediately
downloads the site, Crusher, onto Noah’s cellphone.
If
at first he finds the greetings of some of the customers (“What you lookin’ for
sweetie”) and the pictures they show (a large erect cock) often are more than
little off-putting, he finally connects up with the seemingly perfect guy, a
high school senior like himself named Diego. At first they’re both a bit shy
about showing photos of themselves, Diego suggesting he’s not yet out to
everyone. But since Noah reminds him that’s basically the purpose such sights,
he finally sends a picture.
And when he sees Diego’s photo, he’s sold,
waiting anxiously for each new message, and even trying hard to take a good
photo of himself, giving up on a face-on shot for side views of his face to send to his new friend.
Before long they’re talking every day,
sharing the kind of personal things about themselves they might with a good
friend, talking apparently about their fears, their school experiences, their
dreams, etc.—the sorts of things all young gay boys share with one another. Lou
is little afraid that he’s jumping in too quickly, but it was she, after all,
that pushed Noah in the pool so to speak.
Meanwhile, we catch glimpses from
Diego’s real homelife, events which apparently threaten his hidden identity
with his family as his sister picks up his phone, wondering if he has a picture
of his new girlfriend. He’s understandably furious with her, which makes them
wonder what he might be hiding. Yet the father will permit no one on his phone,
not even his wife.
When Diego’s fellow students try to get
him to show a picture of his new girlfriend, he refuses, suggesting he’s not
really in a relationship. So we suspect that he is even more closeted than
Noah.
Diego, it turns out is attending school in Perpignan, while Noah is in Argeles, only a half-an-hour away. And, of course, that leads Noah to suggest that they might see each other sometime. “Why not?” responds Diego. Soon they are sending numerous emojis of hearts to each other every night before bed.
Meanwhile, in Noah’s class the teacher
is talking to them about the Platonic notion of beauty, and asks them to
question what beauty is and where does it exist: the very questions that he
will soon have to work out for himself.
For he soon makes an appointment to
meet Diego at the town’s old theater where Noah knows none of his friends are
likely to visit and will be basically empty at the time he’s arranged. He looks
forward to the event, obviously, but also is terrified, or as he describes it
to Lou, stressed out about it. “What if he doesn’t like me?”—the fear of
everyone who dates for the first time in their lives.
Diego, however, doesn’t show up, and
Noah is furious, returning home depressed. His lovely parents try to break
through his wall of silence, his father even visiting him in his room to
suggest as few parents in these kinds of movies do, “I’m here for you if you
want, son.” But the boy just wants to be alone.
When he finally hears from Diego, the
other begins his conversation with “Can we talk?” suggesting perhaps that there
is something more than the obvious fear involved in his absence. He suggests
that perhaps he is not ready “to be out right now,” describing himself as
stupid. “Please understand that this is really hard for me. I got scared.
Really hard.”
Noah’s response is appropriate: “Fuck
you! I have feelings for you Diego. I’m not the one to judge, I’m like you.”
In any event, the two boys make it up
finally and eventually plan another time in Diego’s home turf.
On the day of the event, Noah takes a
bus to the small restaurant on the outskirts of town Diego has chosen where he
waits.
We see Diego planning to leave the
house, but at the last moment he is told his mother needs the car. Furious,
Diego steals his father’s bicycle, now assured he will be late. Back at the
restaurant we see the appointed hour pass by, Noah growing more and more angry
and despondent simultaneously, finally telling Diego via cellphone that if he
doesn’t show up by the half-hour he will leave.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” pleads the
man.
“It’s not possible. It’s a joke,
right?
But, of course, it isn’t a joke but
the terrible truth. He
shouts out to the man: “Don’t come any closer or I’ll scream,” quickly leaving
the room, while the man breaks down in tears.
A few moments later they meet up again
outside to where Noah has retreated.
“Would you have talked to me if I’d
showed you a real picture of me,” he asks, Noah honestly responding, “Of course
not, look at you, you’re at least 70.” “61,” the man corrects, the boy who
shouts out, “It doesn’t matter, I’m fucking 18.” Noah calls him a pervert, but
the man reminds him he never asked for a nude picture. The man keeps expressing
his sorrow for behaving like he did, but attempts to justify it nonetheless by
suggesting “There’s nothing worse than growing old and to know it’s almost
over. And to know that you’ll never be young again. Not even able to
communicate, to flirt.”
But Noah is right to declare he has
been playing with him, in tears asking had he thought of the consequences, of
his lying to the boy, deceiving him on his first entry to the world of love.
“How am I supposed to fall in love again, you fucking crushed me.”
The man, whose name is Diego,
used a photo of a boy he found on line, claiming accordingly that is has not
lied about everything.
As far Noah is concerned he lied
about everything that matters, he has destroyed this boy’s young love, used it,
perverted it just as Noah insists. His being sorry, his claim that he attempted
to stop it without having the courage, even his sense of guilt is meaningless.
As Noah says, you have no idea how I feel right now.
“And how about me?” Diego asks. “I
fell for you. We were simply two people talking to each other.”
“Just to be clear, this is the last
time we will ever speak to or see one another again. Or I’ll tell my parents
and the police.”
The man insists he will never hear
from him and that he has never done it before. “I felt I was attractive for
some days. One day, you’ll be like me…. You start by lowering it one year, then
two, then a decade….until you have no limit unfortunately.”
But Noah answers correctly: he’ll never
do that he insists. Certainly not after what has happened to him. “I’ll never
put someone through that like you did for me!”
Strangely, however, the man has the
last word in arguing that Noah is a nice boy and he hopes he finds someone
soon. He also knows that the boy will resent him for the rest of his life. It’s
only natural. “But I’ll be forever grateful to you. Thank you.”
And the two leave, Noah screaming for
him to “Fuck off.”
We also see the boy we mistakenly
believed was Diego talking to his girlfriend, evidently someone with whom he
had been in a relationship, but with whom he had broken off, now realizing he
truly loves her.
Much as in Call Me by Your Name,
Noah is in too much pain to return home by himself, but obviously not over a
love enjoyed and lost, but for a love he never had. And as in Luca Guadagnino’s
2017 film, it is a painfully quiet journey.
So much for Platonic love. For youth
love is based on the beauty seen and recognized up close, not imagined, even if
Noah has forced him to do just that.
Back at home, his mother, like his
father previously, reminds him that they will always be there if he wants to
talk. But how can a boy share the sadness Noah has just experienced with his
parents?
In his philosophy class, the teacher continues with the lesson: “So how can we see the difference between creating real things and creating their image? Simply by the difference between the viewer’s position and the one of the represented object.”
Fortunately, the lesson is interrupted by
a knock on the classroom door, the new transfer student whom he has previously
mentioned having finally arrived. Noah looks back to where the new boy Lino has
been seated, and Lino quietly waves at him.
In this sad film, French director Lucas
Morales works his way cleverly around the use of a great deal of cellphone
texting, while imbuing his scenes with a sense of remarkable framing and a
strong color palette which, along with his intelligent script, helped to make
this short independent film feel highly professional.
Los
Angeles, June 25, 2022
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review (June 2022).
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