a deluge
by Douglas Messerli
Lamont Lamar & Mustafaa Tajuddin
(screenplay), Lamont Lamar (director) The Night It Rained / 2021 [13
minutes]
Lamont Lamar’s The Night It Rained is a
gritty and sad short of 13 minutes that traces the day of a young black man, Malachi
(Evan Joelle) trying to get an education despite almost everything that stands
in his way, particularly his low grades which has resulted in the loss of his
scholarship.
Although the school counselor, who is also black, seems sympathetic and
attempts to offer him some options, they are slim and near impossible to solve
his financial problems. She never asks about his mental health or his spiritual
well-being, but simply advises him that he must get his grades up, without
realizing that they may be impediments to studying, including obviously the
further burden now of living without any financial support.
She
blithely suggests he reach out to family for help, but he angrily replies that
his scholarship was the only reason he’s there, and “you all took it. Ain’t
shit for me back home!”
He can appeal, she declares, but he will have send along a letter
explaining why there has been “a decline in his performance,” something which
we also soon discover is near impossible, since this young man is queer, which
still stands as a stigma in the black community. Moreover, in order to survive,
he has been forced to seek out jobs as a male prostitute and in one of his
meetings he has evidently encountered a man who has annually raped him,
resulting not only in humiliating and brutal event but with a serious loss of
blood.
Malachi attempts to call several people, presumably other clients of his
past although they could possibly be friends, suggesting he’s just in the
neighborhood and wonders if he could stop by, but each of them make it clear
it’s not a convenient time or they no longer have any interest in meeting up
with him. In each case he apologizes, brushing it off as it he meant nothing,
that “I was just in the area” and in one case quickly glossing over his call by
suggesting, “It’s okay, I got some homework to do.” But clearly, without any
money in order to survive he can hardly focus on “homework.”
He has no choice but to telephone the very man who previously raped him.
We don’t know anything about what has happened in the past or who he is
calling, but there are clues when one watches the scene over, of how he deals
with the previous encounter, the student responding at one point, “Yes, sir,”
and soon after, “I’m up to it!” He is clearly so very desperate that he must
once more put himself in danger.
With the lovely San Francisco skyline in the distance, we see our young
hero trudging off to his awful rendezvous, the danger of which the music by Ben
Stanbridge hints with its dark dissonant chords.
A
white man greets him somewhat surlily at the door, “I see you made it,”
observing clearly that he has arrived late. And as Malachi moves into the room,
he remarks, “What are you doing?,” the boy again apologizing. “Take your shoes
off!”
The place, as one might expect, is an attractive artist’s space with
contemporary art work upon its walls. And the man (Aland Brikfani) offers him a
glass of wine, breaking character only to ask, “How are you?” as if only
slightly interested in the health of the young man we soon discover he has
brutally fucked.
“Cool,” is the only reply that Malachi can offer, while it is clear he is
obviously not cool, not comfortable, afraid of what he knows he about to happen
all over again, opening him up to the torture of the previous event. But this
time he announces instead of $400 it’s $700, “the price went up.” His greedy
S&M client is a bit resentful but can afford to pay, peeling the hundreds
off of a chunk of bills and handing it over.
“Go in the bedroom,” his client
demands, the opening niceties having come to a sudden end. From here on in we
do not know whether what is happening in the present or the past as we observe
him entering into a red-lit room, stripping down. The man enters, holds him for
a moment and mutters “You’re so beautiful,” as he gently strokes Malachi’s face
and chest, but a second later we hear the boy crying out in the pain as the
client fucks him relentlessly in the shower, a scene interspersed with images of
him grabbing him around the neck and dragging him off.
The film’s final scene shows the boy sitting on his bed in his room,
picking up the phone, and dialing before uttering the single word: “Ma.” It is
a call to home, a call for help, but we know there probably will be no
explanation or even a plea for him to return. A young man like our hero has no
choices.
Los Angeles, April 29, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April
2022).
No comments:
Post a Comment