Andrew Ondrejak | The Actress / 2021

playing dress-up

by Douglas Messerli

 

Rick Gradone (creative director), Andrew Ondrejak (director) The Actress / 2021 [7 minutes]

 

In just seven minutes, US director Andrew Ondrejak asks Philippines-born filmmaker and actor Isabel Sandoval to perform six primarily queer iconic figures, themselves representing mixed genders and, in the case of Marlene Dietrich, a gender-crossing figure.

     In a sense, this film is a kind cinematic version of one of artist Cindy Sherman’s photographic conceits, attempting to embody various figures from classic film scenes. But the choices here seem random and with no coherent logic.

     This short begins with Sandoval playing Jane Wyman in All That Heaven Allows, as she shifts quickly to a sort of stand-up comedian version of Marlene Dietrich in Morocco. After a brief visitation into the body of Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet, she becomes the intergalactic fantasy figure of Jane Fonda in Barbarella. Another quick visit in a kind of science-fiction futurist character, Malcolm McDowell in The Clockwork Orange, transforms her to a slightly more ponderous consideration of what being someone other truly means as Jessica Chastain in Terrence Malick’s always ponderous The Tree of Life.

      The connecting link between these various metamorphizations is the idea of transformation itself. Sandoval begins her role, dressed as herself, commenting “I want to start from nothing. To become someone else. Someone new. To leave these arms, and these legs. To escape this body in order to understand it.”  

      And over the course of the shifts of character, there is a great deal of pretentious, new-age style dialogue about fantasy and the possibility of becoming one another, of moving from self to self without being able to find one’s true self. Indeed, the film ends with her advice as a mother to son “You can become anything you want,” while the character herself seems to regret her search for having looked elsewhere without first looking within.

     Director Ondrejak insists: “In each scenario, the cinematographer Diana Matos and I tried to stay as faithful as possible to the original way it was filmed…including lenses, film stock, and camera movements. It was an enormously interesting process akin to being a painter and going to the Louvre to replicate a painting by an old master.”

      However, he doesn’t truly pull it off, some of the makeup and wigs looking ridiculously inept, particularly regarding the Dietrich and Jane Fonda scenes. Sandoval, on the other hand, almost makes for a convincing Malcolm McDowell and a reasonable facsimile of Jane Wyman lost in the perfect world without love.

     But in the end, these don’t evoke anything much except vague facsimiles of what must be the director’s favorite characters from some of his favorite movies, without truly exploring why they are significant and how they reveal the truths he is evidently seeking about self and other, gender and fantasy, and natural and exaggerated forms of beauty. Strange to say, despite this journey of a single individual into personal vision of the past, there no evocation of love or nostalgia, but simply an attempt at imitation. Whereas, Sherman’s work in this particular corner of her vast exploration of self, gender, and identity is so fascinating because it nearly overwhelms one with a sense of nostalgia by freeing the images of all narrative content.

      I’d give this young filmmaker praise for trying something rather bold, but suggest he seek out a more talented writer than himself and a more experienced creative designer. It was a joy, however, to see Sandoval, who shares some of these concerns in her own work, helping a younger filmmaker out.

 

Los Angeles, May 29, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).

Carlos Augusto de Oliveira | Tre somre (Three Summers) / 2006

what does not being gay mean?

by Douglas Messerli

 

Morten Kirkskov and Carlos Augusto de Oliveira (screenplay), Carlos Augusto de Oliveira (director) Tre somre (Three Summers) / 2006 [28 minutes]

 

In Danish director Carlos Augusto de Oliveira’s Tre somre (Three Summers) of 2006, a handsome, middle-aged man Jørgen, evidently a kind of tax consultant, and his wife spend most of the year abroad, returning home only in the summer when they annually invite their next-door neighbors, Thomas (Simon Munk), his wife Birgittte (Stine Schrøder Jensen), and their 14 year-old son Peter (Carsten Bjørnlund) over for dinner.

      It’s a strange affair, the two men and their wives obviously not happy with one another, and the brooding Peter hardly speaking, but when he does, probing into territory where none of the adults want to go. Peter brings up a political comment, which they all refuse to deal with, and sex is something they all insist is off the table. But even when Jørgen brings up the subject of love, he gets no response. The silences punctuate their pretense of chatter.

      When it’s time to leave, Peter begs to stay on a little longer to walk Jørgen’s dog, and is given permission.

      The walk includes Jørgen, who seems to be the only one who has taken an interest in the somewhat precocious boy, and when they stop and sit a few moments on a park bench, the elder man asks the boy why is so seemingly angry or resentful.       

     Peter admits to a secret, which he refuses to reveal. But Jørgen states that the boy can trust him. Peter asks the same question of his older friend, why is he so “sad and pissed,” and makes an agreement: if he tells his secret, Jørgen must also reveal his.

      Without much pause, the good looking boy admits that he’s gay. With further probing from the elder, he reveals that he has never yet sex with a boy, but he completely disinterested in girls.

       Jørgen finally admits his secret: he hates his wife, declares her stupid, and is despondent about his relationship.

       The two promise to keep each other’s revelations to themselves, and their first summer, described by the intertitles as “Last Summer” is over.

       “This summer” witnesses a similar gathering, but by this time Jørgen has divorced his wife and taken up drinking heavily. It’s also clear that Peter’s parents are not getting along very well. But the meal Jørgen makes is excellent, and all agree that it’s a pity that more friends couldn’t share the meal with them.

       When it’s time to leave, Peter begs for a stay over, to which Jørgen readily agrees, and which his parents permit as long as he makes up his own bed.

      Evidently, the two have been corresponding, since Jørgen enquires whether he’s still with his boyfriend, who has apparently left him. Peter asks about the woman the older man has been seeing, a friendship which also has evidently ended, Jørgen describing it difficult to find interesting women without bothering to perceive how difficult it must be for a 15-year-old to find gay boys in his high school in what apparently is a small city.

      Peter, like so many youths, dares to go where no adult would have imagined, asking Jørgen to describe his most exciting sexual experience. Clearly, the older man feels more comfortable talking with the boy than with his peers, as he opens up about a threesome with two women, how, as they danced together, slightly drunk, one behind removed his belt as the other begin to unzip his pants.

        As he tells the story, Peter sitting on the couch close to Jørgen, slowly repeats the actions, unbelting his elder friend and unzipping his crotch, obviously feeling the man’s growing erection. The two kiss and in the next frame Jørgen awakes in bed the next morning with the boy beside him. Unlike the scenes with his wife in the first section, when he cannot wait to get out of bed, he lies for a while looking over at the youthful beauty. Obviously both have enjoyed the sex the others could not even talk about.

       The third and final section of his somewhat daring short film—certainly a work that could not have been made easily in the US—is titled “Next Summer,” so we are not sure whether we are now simply moving ahead in time or witnessing the “next” summer’s possible narrative.

       This time we witness Jørgen with another young women, Nana (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) with whom he is obviously in love, underlined with kisses and hugs between the two lovers. Peter’s parents show up as does another couple their age. For the first time we see a serious dinner of adults. Peter has evidently not been invited, but appears nonetheless, Jørgen, upon seeing him, immediately rising to return to the kitchen so cut up some vegetables for the dinner.

        Peter finds him, and both, in their own ways, seem to ask why they are there, Peter at the event, Jørgen hiding in the kitchen. Peter challenges him why he wasn’t invited, a question which Jørgen telling him he did, “I invited your parents as usual.”

        But Peter responds by asking him, “You know that they got divorced.” Clearly the parental situation is not as before, and his invitation is not any longer assured.

       Jørgen is clearly afraid of Peter revealing their summer fling, the boy taunting him about it “Are you afraid they’ll find out that we fucked?”—the discomfort of even the mention showing on the older man’s face.

       We warns Peter that he truly loves Nana, and hopes for his silence.

       Near the end of a meal in which it is clear that Jørgen is obviously nervous, Peter taps the side of his wine glass and proposes a speech, terror expressed in Jørgen’s look. But the boy speaks shortly and effectively, thanking his friend for being a man who can keep his secrets and toasting to the new couple.

      The party over, Nana goes into bed, with Jørgen remaining on the terrace, drink in hand, somewhat broodingly. He hears footsteps, and observes Peter who surprising has not yet left. “I’m going for a walk. You want to join me?”

      “Listen Thomas, why are you coming here? I’ve finally found someone I can love. And when you came here with your gay...thing.”

      Peter’s response is understandably a bit peeved, asking why they had sex then? He can only answer that he wasn’t “himself,” but Peter’s response is a bit startling, “So it wasn’t you then when you said, “fuck me?”

       It would be one thing perhaps for a homosexual to be attracted to a boy, but actually engage in anal sex as the “bottom” certainly might say something very different. Obviously, Peter was not just enticing him into gay sex, but seducing him completely.

       And Jørgen’s response, “I don’t have to listen to this,” is those of all men attracted to boys and other men who cannot admit it. He walks away to the woods, Peter following.

       Peter demands that he speak the truth, “You know what we did, don’t you?” the older admitting, “We fucked.”

        “And you thought it was nice. I thought it was nice.”

      Jørgen, however, will go no further, assuring Peter that he is a nice boy...a nice man. But the event should never have happened.

      Yet Peter does insist upon one final thing before he leaves, a kiss. Jørgen kisses him briefly on the lips, and the boy walks apparently out of his life.

       This time when the man returns to the terrace he goes up quickly to his bedroom where Nana is half-asleep, kissing her and telling her he loves her. But we suspect that his words and acts are as much to convince himself as to express his love to his sleepy companion.

       It is almost as if Peter might have imagined this scenario. Yet he knows, surely, that he probably still holds a control over Jørgen that may challenge the man’s relationship with any future woman, lover or wife; or perhaps it might merely be a later expression of the most unusual sexual experience of his life, certainly far more exciting than the two women he once bedded.

       Again, neighbors, and even their sons, can be dangerous people.

 

Los Angeles, March 19, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2022).

 

 

Tom DeCerchio | Nunzio’s Second Cousin / 1994

bashing back

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tom DeCerchio (screenwriter and director) Nunzio’s Second Cousin / 1994

 

If Tom DeCerchio’s short, 18-minute film is centered upon a message to those who strive to attack members of the gay community, yet it is nonetheless quirky enough—at times almost surreal given its central character’s mother and his own delusions—that we don’t feel this work as being heavy-handed in the least. Over-acted perhaps, a bit too dark in its earlier scenes that end up with almost comical results, but never overstated. Like its title, Nunzio’s Second Cousin lives in a kind of fantasy no-man’s-land which delights us more than teaching us its obvious message: gay-bashing is a dangerous activity.

     The narrative begins as two macho men, one dressed as an S&M leather boy, the other simply a hefty man who can clearly hold his own in a good fight, leave a Chicago bar, kissing and fondling one another as they walk down the dark street.

     Spotted by a gang of young high school gay-bashers, clubs in hand, they are attacked. But within an instant the attackers become potential victims as the heavier-set man, Tony Randozza (Vincent D’Onofrio) pulls out a gun, demanding the boys line up and hand over their driver’s licenses.

      The boys, all from Cicero, have just unknowingly attempted to accost a police sergeant who could easily arrest them for battery and assault if not for a hate crime if doing so would make it clear to his fellow police buddies that he is queer. Consequently, he forces the men instead to recite in unison “Gay people are nice people” and other such lines, including a commitment to never attack a gay man again.

       Before he lets them go, however, he pulls the most handsome of the bunch, Jimmy (Miles Perlich) who is clearly their leader, out of the line and demands that he accept an invitation for dinner at his house the following evening, threatening that if the boy doesn’t show up he’ll round him out for more severe punishment.

       The boys run off, Jimmy promising to keep the appointment, as Tony’s date, Levon (Harry Waters, Jr.) laughingly pleads they too hurry off to consume a big steak.

        In some respects this entire scene reminds me some of the gay-bashing scene in PJ Castellaneta’s 1998 film Relax, It’s Just Sex when one of the gay men attacked by bashers turns the table, fucking one of the terrified boys who attacked him. We almost wonder whether Tony might have something like that in mind for the cute kid when he retorts: “Sometimes fags bash back.”

       As the following day’s dinner time approaches we see Tony in his home with his queer—in the more traditional meaning of that word—mother (Eileen Brennan) who has spent the day cooking for the event, delighted that her son has finally invited one of his friends to the house. When he provides her with the last name of Jimmy, Serantoni, she recalls once knowing a Nunzio Serantoni, and quickly convinces herself that Nunzio must be the boy’s second cousin.

      The boy arrives on time and, strangely enough, is treated like a special guest, with Mrs. Randazzo serving up several courses and demanding he eat everything on the plate. Yet each time she returns to the kitchen, the implications of Tony’s conversation grows darker, questioning, at one point for example, whether or not the boy might have wondered if he was going to fuck him, responding: “We’ll save that for after the meal.”

      Later Mrs. Randazzo, observing that Jimmy is athletic looking, leads the kid to respond that is on the wrestling team. “No kidding, so was Tony. Oh I was so proud of him the way he used to jump on all those boys.”

      When the mother leaves the room Tony confides, “You know, I think when I was on the wrestling team and all those boys were rubbing against and I was rubbing against them, that’s what made me a homo.”

      At another point, when Tony’s mother asks her son about a date he had the evening before, she asks, “Was she a nice girl?” When she asks him to bring the girl around, he says he will, that he might even marry her someday, breaking into a hearty laugh and prodding to see if Jimmy also doesn’t think it’s funny.

      Unpredictably, he turns almost violent again, demanding that Jimmy tell her about his date, and when the boy demurs, he slaps him and insists to his mother that “Jimmy has something tell you about me.”

      The boy wiggles out of the dangerous corner by finally responding, “I was the wrestling team captain.”

      In a sense, this scene plays like a slightly less clever and menacing scene out of a Harold Pinter or even Edward Albee play. We are most definitely, if nothing else, in game-playing territory, a world just as perverse as were Jimmy’s own actions the night previous.

      The meal finally comes to a end after a desert of cannoli, with Mrs. Randazzo insisting that her guest take some of the desert leftovers home. Tony tells his mother that we will walk the boy out, and exits the house where he once more confronts the delinquent, holding on to the youth’s athletic jacket, “I got news for you Jimmy boy. Bashing fags ain’t going to stop you from becoming one. Trust me, I tried it,” He kisses the boy intensely on the lips and pushes him to the ground, the sweet’s ricotta, cream and chocolate mix now plastered upon the wrestler’s cheeks.

       Tony, it appears, has fucked the boy over more certainly than if he had literally raped him. For the rest of his life Jimmy will now always wonder about his own sexual identity.

 

Los Angeles, December 7, 2020

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog and World Cinema Review (December 2020).

Quentin Lazzarotto | Carlito se va para siempre (Carlito Leaves Forever) / 2018

the escape

by Douglas Messerli

Quentin Lazzarotto (screenwriter and director) Carlito se va para siempre (Carlito Leaves Forever) / 2018 [8 minutes] 

Seemingly trapped in the small riverside village of Palma Real, Peru deep in the Amazonian jungle, Carlito (Carlito Tirira Meshi) determines, under continued abuse, to simply escape his world. With a brief goodbye to his grandmother, who agrees it is best for him to leave given that he is “different,” he steals a small engine powered canoe, and he quickly moves down to a nearby village where his male lover (Pastor Posho Via'eja) is waiting, the two them determining to move on to wherever….it is never revealed. But he and his friend are most definitely moving on forever: there is no coming back.

      Such events happen by the thousands throughout the world every day, but perhaps none quite as dramatic given the powerful waters through which Carlito must navigate, where there is a real fear that they will not make it to whatever urban center they are heading.

       The film, mentored by German filmmaker Werner Herzog most definitely shows his influence. Yet in this film there is no toil or suffering, no monsters to be faced, just a hopeful escape for the two young men into a more accepting and open world previously unavailable in his modern-day village. One wonders, as a commentator noted, whether at an earlier time someone like Carlito might have been given a role in the community; but clearly in the now Roman Catholic based village there is no space for him.

      Yet the movie has no room for regrets or recriminations, only focusing on the boy’s determination to find a new world in which to exist. And that is the purity and full wonder of this truly simple but nonetheless, compelling short movie.

      French filmmaker Quentin Lazzarotto represents a new young talent if he can take on different material as well.

 

Los Angeles, September 13, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2026).

Anthony Aguiar | Only Always You / 2012

 

art wins the heart

by Douglas Messerli

 

Anthony Aguiar (screenplay and director) Only Always You / 2012 [9 minutes]

 

US director Anthony Aguiar’s Only Always You is a pleasant trifle of a film that focuses on a young man in shorts on his daily workout (Andy Florian) being voyeuristically watched a day- dreaming young sketch artist (Brandon Rogers).

     With essential music by Glen Cheney and others, the 9-minute film alternates between dream encounters between the gay, slightly overweight “watcher” and the athlete of his dreams. In the first daydream the boys meet up, the boy in shorts wanting to see what the sketcher has in his little book. They are all “always you,” he shyly hints, the subject of the film, the final image of the two kissing, an image which the boy in shorts doesn’t all seem to mind, leading him to kiss the artist.

      Reality is quickly reestablished, this time interrupted by the two boys sitting side by side in another pleasant encounter which again leads to possible love between the boys.

       

     But soon, in real life, an Eve (Baily Hopkins) enters the sketch artist’s garden, going up to the boy shorts and engaging him in a kiss precisely as he had previously himself has been awarded by his object of desire.

     The girl not only intrudes in the sketch artist’s imagination, but challenges him, as he imaginatively retaliates, going up to the couple and pulling the boy away from her.

     Reality is brought home again, but this time even in the dreamer’s imagination as the boy in shorts rejects him, throws water upon him, and walks away with the girl.

        But the sketch artist wins: he has the picture with his hands and the boy’s entwined.

       In the world that Aguiar depicts the dreamer is awarded his desires through his ability to turn them into art.

 

Los Angeles, October 14, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October 2022).