Anthony Schatteman | Kus me zachtjes (Kiss Me Softly) / 2012

as long as you’re having fun

by Douglas Messerli

 

Anthony Schatteman (screenwriter and director) Kus me zachtjes (Kiss Me Softly) / 2012 [16 minutes]

 

Jasper (Ezra Fieremans) has a problem—or let’s admit it, he has a few problems.  His father Luk (Marc Van Eeghem) is a schlager singer whose handle is Lukkie Luk, one of those individuals who sing sweet, popular, sentimental ballads about melancholy love and easy living. They are the songs sung at sing-a-longs, mostly for geriatric audiences. Luk has a new album coming out. 

      Jasper’s mother, Martine (Marijke Pinoy) watches TV game shows day in and out.

      And Jasper lives in what the publicists of this film themselves describe as a “very grey, small town in Belgium.” If that weren’t enough, Jasper is gay, bullied by his peers, and in love with a lanky fellow 17-year-old, Mathias (Tim Bogaerts). Is it any wonder that at the beginning of Flemish director Anthony Schatteman’s 2012 film, we find Jasper in a funk?

      The movie begins, in fact, with Jasper having to sit through a performance by his father singing with two big-titted twins (Lisa and Clara Vermaercke) doing what appears to a cheerleader routine to his music. And in the very next few frames is tossed a note accusing him a being a fag in class, after which two schoolboys push him against the wall. Even a kiss on the lips from Mathias doesn’t make up for the abuse he has to endure.

       The boys talk briefly about coming out, Jasper suggesting that it might be better that his father remains, as he is about most things in life, without a clue. But inside, we can see that his inability to share his relationship with his family is torturing him. To resolve his problems, he turns to painting, which his mother admires. But there is also a rather too obvious mother-son bonding, as she suggests that perhaps just the two of them might escape for a weekend in Paris.

       Going through his pants pockets in preparation for the laundry, however, his mother discovers one of the hate notes in a pocket. On a trip into the city, she tries to talk to him, asking if everything is all right; but he answers basically in monosyllabic words, she responding, “Honey, you’re talking, you’re talking, but you’re not saying anything.” All Jasper can answer is that he hates the school, which evidently has been chosen by his father, his mother perfectly willing to send him someplace else if she could.

      Later that evening, Luk enters his room with the hate note in hand, asking if his son has something to share with him. “Are you being bullied at school? You’re not gay, are you?”

      Jasper answers what any boy in his situation might say: “No.”

      “Don’t fucking tell me that’s it true, man.”

      “What do you care, anyhow?”

      “Of course. I’d care.”

      His father already having put it in the past tense, Jasper puts on his jacket and leaves, angrily lifting and pounding his bike against the concrete and he rides it along an empty road. He ends up in the local bar where he meets up with Mathias; they kiss—for both of them an important relief.

     The boys bike over the site where Jasper’s father is celebrating his new album, once again meeting up with three school toughs who tease him about coming to his daddy’s opening.

   His father, singing with the two twins, has just reached the point in his song here, after melancholically having suggested nothing matters as long as you’re having fun, when he pleads, “So kiss me softly, on my mouth” as Jasper and Mathias enter the room, quickly move to the front, and proceed to do just what the song is arguing for. The local media cameras immediately shift their attention to the boys, the elder audience dropping their mouths in astonishment, Luk himself stopping mid-phrase to watch a realization of his song he hadn’t ever quite imagined.

      The boys stop, Jasper turning to face his father and Luk looking back in utter confusion. At that very moment, Martine rushes into the hall, shouting, “Luk, Luk, we won,” having evidently won some television contest which she has entered. 

 

   But in the utter silence that follows, it appears that no one has won, all having lost something that tentatively kept them in a relationship in which none of them were truly participating. Or, to put it another way, perhaps all of them have won, suddenly realizing that they will have to determine a new way to connect if they are to remain a family.

      This was Anthony Schatteman’s first film, and he has done at least 7 works since, some of them continuing the Jasper story (with the same actor). As his career has progressed, his subjects and filmmaking have increased in complexity and significance; I’d argue, he is one of the most interesting filmmakers of short LGBTQ films in Belgium, which has already a fairly long tradition of gay filmmaking.

 

Los Angeles, August 7, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2023).