that’s what friends are for
by
Douglas Messerli
Arthur
Cahn (screenwriter and director) Totems / 2023 [25 minutes]
At
an after-mass ceremony, the mother Marianne (Anne Alvaro) has arranged for a
small gathering with catered food for family members and some of her recently
dead son Bastien’s friends, Paul (Arthur Cahn), Delphine (Victoire Du Bois),
Cyril (Solal Forte), and Eve (Lucie Gallo).
When they ask her if there is someone to
help her clean up, she explains that no, she prefers to work alone since it
keeps her mind of the sadness of the event, and that she even plans later that
afternoon to visit Bastien’s apartment and clean it out of his possessions.
But that alerts one of his friends of the
fact that Bastien had quite an extensive collection of dildos, and as they
share the fact with one another, all four determine, with the spare key that
Paul has, to visit the apartment and remove the dildo’s before the mother
arrives. Although she knows her son was gay, she might indeed still be startled
and even shocked to discover his vast dildo collection.
They too are in mourning, but they realize
their duties as friends and leave the gathering somewhat early.
As they enter the apartment, almost
immediately in pictures and memories sadness sets in, as it is revealed that
although it was thought that Paul was a sexual partner with Bastien, and
certainly he wished for it, but, as Cyril points out, it never occurred. He
suspects, however, that they should check out the bedroom first, but they also
all wish to snoop around for a bit. Delphine has discovered a beautiful picture
of her from the past.
But Delphine asks a far more important
question, as they don rhinestone crowns that their friend obviously kept, “What
if we find something that we don’t want to find, that he wanted to keep
secret?”
Cyril asks, “Like what?”
And Delphine reminds them “Aren’t there
things you’d prefer not to know?”
They witness pictures of Bastien with each
of them taken in a photo booth, as Paul reaches down under the bed, pulling out
the totem box of dildos. They also find a cock ring or two, which the women
can’t recognize. But they laugh solemnly as they look over the collection,
Delphine suggesting one of the purple dildos is “cute” and even kissing it.
“What do we do?” asks Paul, “Toss them? The Salvation Army won’t want them.”
But Eve still cannot quite comprehend
what it should be a secret from the mother? “We’re ashamed of who he was, and
what he liked?”
Delphine first suggests its for his
mother, but also for Bastien. “There are things don’t share with their parents.
If I were to die I’d hate my mom to find by sexts.”
“When I die, burn my phone” says Cyril.
Paul jokes, “You mean that you screw
conservatives?”
In short, in the midst of their sincere
best intentions there are put-downs of each other, some comic mockery, etc,
since they know one another so very well.
They obviously have been a tight group
wound around Bastien.
Eve chastises him for evidently having
seen “Pierre” again!
Cyril explains that he just needed some
bodily warmth, it being the day after the accident, obviously now explaining to
the film audience how Bastien died. “I didn’t want to sleep alone.”
Paul takes off his crown, obviously
realizing that perceiving that Cyril did have a sexual relationship with
Bastien that he did not.
This is a subtle and complex film as
secrets are revealed, loves, lies, and realities are rawly put on display.
Eve suggests that perhaps they should
each take a dildo in memory of him, but Delphine mocks the idea as creating a
kind mausoleum, the idea of which she hates, particularly the idea of
fetishizing him.
But Eve argues that Delphine is simply
whining. That she herself might put one on one of her necklaces and accuses her
of being heartless.
“I do have a heart, that’s why I don’t
need all of this,” she retorts.
But realizing this is no time to fight,
she soon after apologizes.
Paul gets a paper bag, Eve and Cyril
both claiming their own favorite, while the others just get tossed into the bag
to be chucked away, Paul refusing to select one.
They walk away, tossing the many
remaining dildos in the trash. Then, hug one another, and basically separate,
each on their way to other business.
A few minutes later, however, Paul
returns to the trash bin to pull out his own selection. He returns to his own
apartment and sits in out on display on his coffee table. He goes back into his
bedroom and uses it, perhaps imagining the sexual relationship he might have
had with Bastien. But he quickly breaks down in tears.
He calls Eve, suggesting that perhaps
Delphine was right, that we should have each left it all. “After all, Bastien
liked controversy.”
Maybe we should have left one dildo. One
isn’t fifteen.
“But I was happy to do that with all of
you,” admits Eve.
Eve invites him over, but he claims that
he has to learn to do it on his own, to survive after the man he clearly loved
as disappeared from his life.
Paul sneaks back into Bastien’s apartment
to return his dildo to its proper place, but finds the mother asleep in her own
son’s bed. He quietly creeps in and puts the one remaining dildo under the bed.
She awakens to ask Paul if Bastien was
his boyfriend, and he answers, no, he as just a friend. She is curious, having
met just one boyfriend Jérémie, and that was ages ago. She wonders if maybe he
was too selfish to be with someone—or too busy.
He suggests that he is on his way, but
she begs to stay and talk, asking if he has a boyfriend.
“No, I don’t,” he admits as he sits down
on nearby chair.
She continues, noting that they were such
good friends, close, and asks him what he is hiding from her.
He assures her, “Nothing.” She begs him
to take whatever he wants. It’s absurd, she admits, sleeping in his bed. The
loss for both of them without a full possibility of communicating their full
sorrow across generations is palpable.
Now she suddenly admits that she knows
what he was replacing under the bed, since she noticed they were missing. “I’d
already stopped by, you know? I saw the trunk had been moved, was that you
guys?” She admits even as a child she noticed wads of tissues under his bed, a
“pretty racy” page on his computer. “Bastien knew how to enjoy life. I always
admired him about that.”
“I just hope he made love—with men in the
flesh,” she finally explains.
“It was beautiful what you said at the
ceremony. ….He loved you a lot you know?” Paul, almost now in tears, turns and
leaves, while Marianne falls back into her beloved son’s bed.
We might only wish that Paul could have
assured her of something, that he had loved other men, that he more in his life
than the dildos. But even we don’t know that. He certainly had dear friends who
needn’t have worried about his mother’s response to what she found, but perhaps
might have paid more attention her heart, her fears, and desires for her own
son. But that is always the generational problem: parents will never learn
everything.
This is a truly profound drama by French
director Arthur Cahn, that begins as a kind of comedy, but soon after makes
tears well up in one’s eyes. Cahn, who has now released nine videos is
certainly a filmmaker to hold one’s attention.
Los
Angeles, August 10, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2026).
