Nicolás Blanco and Julia Ponce Díaz | Cowboy, Choker, Harness & Heart / 2023

going for it

by Douglas Messerli

 

Nicolás Blanco and Thomas Kivney (screenplay), Nicolás Blanco and Julia Ponce Díaz (directors) Cowboy, Choker, Harness & Heart / 2023 [8 minutes]

 

I was going to begin this essay by admitting that I am too old to have participated in a gay rave, which this film suggests it is depicting—although I always presumed there were far more participants in a rave than US directors Blanco and Ponce Díaz portray. But then I realized that the nightly group orgies I participated in the large warehouse-sized backroom of my favorite New York river side bar, although lacking the appropriate intense drone of music, was probably close to what today’s bar denizens might describe as a rave. Certainly, there was a mass hysteria of excitement seeing so many nude bodies around you having sex!

     And, in comparison, although this particular bar seems to be a favorite of those who like to dress up in their mode of their favorite persona—hence the title, verging on what might be described as something close to S&M—the uncostumed young boys with whom I shared sex were basically playing the role of the all-American college kid, which of course we all realized could not possibly be an appropriate description of any us—despite the fact, I’d argue today, I was precisely that even if I had gone sexually berserk. I was young and cute, and finally openly gay, ready to experience life to the fullest without a blink.

 

     Filmed dark and close-up, this film’s characters seem oddly far more restrained. Pairing off as two different couples in a gay bar bathroom—evidently the only bathroom in the place since throughout the sexual frenzy, a female, Mistress (Amina Larkin) keeps pounding on the stall door to demand that the faggots clear out so that she can take a shit—as the characters explore the limits and possibility of wild, open sex. As Ponce Díaz, a filmmaker born in Spain, has expressed it “I am very much an advocate for sex positivity,” by which I presume she means that she believes in sex as a totally positive thing.

     Joining the others in the bathroom is Heart (Ty Chan), dressed in a loose knit, sleeveless sweater wearing several necklaces, one with a locked heart hanging from it, and Choker (Matt Ford), a lean, handsome, bare-chested boy wearing a choker around his neck, claiming to have the key to the trinket that hangs just below Heart’s larynx. The two dive into a kissing and groping session that promises possibly be a noisy, lust-filled session—except suddenly Heart remembers that he’s in a committed relationship, and monogamous to boot. We can only wonder why then has he suddenly appeared in such a place, as does Choker, challenging him by asking if his partner sent him there or he heard about it from a City Bank ad. Mistress, intervenes to say that monogamy being a product of capitalism suggests that maybe he actually did hear about on a City Bank ad, and that Heart is just as disgusting as—pointing to Choker—“this faggot here.”

     But Heart isn’t moved, at least not until a few seconds later Cowboy and Harness come stumbling out of the stall. Heart is stunned, as Cowboy calls out “Babe!” Mistress puts her hand to her mouth, recognizing what we also do, that the other party of Heart’s monogamous relationship is Cowboy. 

     After a long gasp and pause, Hearth suddenly moves over to Choker and plants a deep kiss on his mouth, while Cowboy keeps calling out “Babe.” Finally, Heart turns toward him, “What? You jealous? He moves toward Cowboy, planting kisses on his mouth as well, before he continues his ecstatic sexual release with Harness, turning to ask Cowboy, “You coming?”

     Together all four shove themselves into the stall and go at it, while Mistress shits in the open stool, since clearly the stall won’t be open for quite a while now.

      This film might shock some viewers and surely disgust others. But really it’s all just good sex that functions also as a kind of furious satire. If I were young again, I might surely join them. It’s nice to have sex as the central subject of a short gay film again.

 

Los Angeles, July 18, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).