Christopher Banks | Communication / 2010

the guilt of abandonment

by Douglas Messerli

 

Christopher Banks (screenwriter, based on the play by David Blakey, and director) Communication / 2010 [20 minutes]

 

This is mostly a film of regret and lost opportunities of love.

      Jacob (Rudi Vodanovich) is an Orthodox Jewish student involved in a relationship with his mentor over what is apparently for several years. Because of his religious tenants, the boy does not engage in an actual homosexual experiences with Andrew (Alexander Campbell) who has his own lover Charles (Richard Lambeth).

    Yet the boy intrigues the elder man, the two meeting regularly both for lunches and kosher dinners cooked by Andrew in his rather palatial home.

      Charles seems to be missing most of the time, but upon one invite, Charles, a true pretty boy, has suddenly returned to Auckland and when he meets Jacob at the door, calls into Charles that the stripper has arrived. From there on he continues to abuse the young student until finally Jacob is forced to leave, humiliated for his friendship with his teacher by his own lover.

     What is clear, since he has been able to buy his own house of Mulholland drive, Charles must be doing quite financially well in his Los Angeles activities.

     Yet, Jacob also realizes that his attraction and friendship with Andrew, is far more than a simple admiration and that he actually is gay, as he struggles through the Jewish texts explaining their outlawing of homosexuality.

     Finally, upon graduation he determines to return home to Christchurch, which he insists is home, Charles arguing no, home is where you feel you belong, trying once more to lure the young man on with new possibilities.

     Jacob, however, is toying with the possibility of spending some time in Israel, which he feels might be the right decision for him. Of course, that decision is also somewhat based on his own sexual insecurity. Because it is clear that he does enjoy Jacob’s company, their intellectual engagement, and their intimate discussions.

     The film begins, however, sometime after all these college-day experiences, when he returns to Auckland, having suddenly inherited Andrews’ large house. A great many of the facts of this short film are revealed as he reenters the house he quite inexplicably has inherited and finds mementoes which now remind him of their days together.

     As he moves slowing through the house, he suddenly hears sounds from the upstairs bedroom, and rushes up to see the television on with Andrews attempting to explain his decision of leaving all his wealth to him. Charles has finally left him, and he admits that their relationship had always been a mere distraction, while his friendship with Jacob and been intensely intellectual and engaging. Of course, he admits, he had always hoped to make their relationship something deeper, hoping to bring the boy into his home; yet he doesn’t regret what they had, consisting of some of the most meaningful moments in his life.

    We later learn, moreover, that it apparently has not always been purely intellectual, and perhaps was physical from time to time, something that clearly has been even hidden in Jacob’s own consciousness.

    But suddenly, now he is also confronted by an angry Charles himself, revealing that Andrew has died, after falling for a ladder, trying to repaint the house, a task which he had invited Jacob to help him with. Charles, in his hate and spleen, basically summarizes the truth, that Jacob had run off in fear of love he could not fully embrace, leaving his teacher alone.

    Shocked by the reality, Jacob staggers away down the beach, finally perceiving his own kind of abandonment of the loving Andrew. 

     Unfortunately, the film writers have not sufficiently found a way to resolve Jacob’s sense of guilt and suffering for his loss. Instead, it sends a female stranger, noticing the boy’s distress to ask him if he is okay. Finally, admitting he is not at all okay, Jacob breaks down in tears, and she (Rita Lefau Ryan) attempts to comfort him.

    In short, this film is itself afraid to fully confront the sexuality behind Andrews’ love, while also never being able to even question the appropriateness of their deep friendship. Presumably the house remains now his property, and he will somehow have to explain to himself and his family how he has possibly come to inherit it. And frankly, for all the kind love Andrew shows him, Jacob appears throughout as a somewhat sour and cold fish, simply not able to pull away from yoke of his religious beliefs to challenge himself to fully engage in love. As terrible as the mean and boorish Charles is, there is finally a truth to what he says, although given his own wealth and abandonment how and why he has returned to the Auckland house is unclear except as a gesture of his spite. Yet, it is also clear that Charles feels guilt for his own abandonment.

 

Los Angeles, October 3, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2026).