discovering sex
by
Douglas Messerli
Gilles
Bindi (screenwriter and director) Un beau jour, un coiffeur (One Fine
Day, a Hairdresser) / 2004 [12 minutes]
Jérôme
(Julien Baumgartner) is a philosopher major working on his doctorate, happy
ensconced in a totally heterosexual relationship with his girlfriend Claire (Malvina
Héraud), both of whom speak the language of Kant and other great philosophers
rather than any language sounding like love.
Long-haired and shaggy, Jérôme, in fact total unaware
of his appearance, is told by his mother (Marie-Laure Beneston) that he simply
has to get a haircut. So he sets out to the local hair salon, suddenly meeting
up with the beautiful eyes and face of the hairdresser, Brice (Clément Allanic),
upon which, as if he had been literally struck by Cupid’s arrow, he immediately
falls in love.
Given free reign to do anything with his
hair, Brice gives the previous conservatively dressed and styled Jérôme a kind
of combination French crop and Modern Mullet.
By the next day, the PhD. pupil is so
confused that he can hardly lecture to his younger philosophy students about
Kant, and asks permission to leave. He explains what has happened to
Claire,
who is now so fed up with his sudden infatuation that she tells him to take two
aspirin and leaves him alone in the library to stew over how he might again
meet up with Brice.
He returns home and immediately announces
to his family that he is in love with a male hairdresser. His mother comes out
of the kitchen simply demanding that he not make such a thing about as long as
he is happy.
That night he has a sexual fantasy in
which first Claire, hair down begins to sexually tease him on a table top, but
is quickly thrown off by a half-naked Brice who so excites Jérôme that he
immediately comes all over the philosophy book he is reading.
Perhaps he should take him some flowers;
after all he is a hairdresser. But he has never learned any of the protocol of
flirting or dating for that matter. He has no social skills.
But he soon meets Brice on the street,
explaining that he has suddenly met someone with whom he has fallen in love,
waxing quite brilliantly about his romantic desires. Brice is so impressed that
he begs him to join him in a café to help him explain his own love to a girl he
has just met. Jérôme has no choice but to tag along, later watching make-out
madly when whatever he has done to match them has been successful. Brice and he become friends, a far cry from what he imagined.
What is a boy that has suddenly
discovered that he is gay to do? Of course, the whole idea of someone
discovering their sexuality in one fell swoop is highly unlikely. For most of
us it takes years of confusion and self-doubt before we are ready to admit that
we like the people of the same sex. But this is a cinematic fable much like Bringing
Up Baby (1938) where, after meeting the exotic, leopard-loving
Hepburn and being dressed by her in a female negligée Cary Grant declares he’s “just
gone gay”; and let us just admit that Jérôme has previously kept his face and
mind in his books. It is doubtful that he and Claire have ever had sex, much like
Grant’s character and his former fiancée Alice Swallow.
But now Jérôme, having discovered that the
new love of his life, although working as a hairdresser, is totally straight is
newly depressed. His mother insists that he take her for her swimming lessons.
And there, within moments he discovers her hunky swimming coach (Guirlain Géran)
who appears to be equally delighted to meet Jérôme and have a full conversation
when he returns in 4 hours to pick up his mother. Love has struck again.
There’s nothing profound about this short
work, but it’s beautifully filmed, mixes serious conversations with its darts
of love, and provides several handsome boys along way, including the lead actor
Baumgartner. That’s a lot for a 12-minute film to offer.
Los
Angeles, August 5, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2026).
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