start again
by
Douglas Messerli
Virginie
Nolin (screenplay), Francis Papillon (director) Je m'excuse (I’m
Sorry) / 2022 [20 minutes]
Louis
(Emile Dufour) seems to have everything. He has a handsome businessman lover,
Sam (Dany Boudreault) who has just bought him a new suburban house. And he has
friends in the Village back on Montreal. He plans to return to a party there
hosted by his friend, Nadine (Noé Lira), but when he mentions the invitation to
Sam, his boyfriend reminds him that he will just be returning from a trip to
Toronto, and he would like to spend the night alone with him.
Louis
agrees. But in Sam’s absence he grows increasingly lonely, separated from the
world he left behind and which, evidently, contributed to his being HIV
positive. Even a walk through the wealthy suburban streets ends in a negative
reaction from Sam. Louis had left his phone back at the house, and Sam became
worried when he couldn’t contact him. Oddly enough, this neighborhood still has
an old-fashioned pay phone on a nearby street.
Yet we sense that there is something else
about Sam’s concern, his overprotective caring for his lover, and his
determination to keep Louis away from all his old friends. And when he comes
back from Toronto somewhat early to discover that Louis has not only bought a
new car, but is planning to split out that evening for a party at Nadine’s
house, he grabs Louis’s cellphone and refuses to return it, as if the 24-year-old
were a child. He insists that Louis remain home.
Their argument leads to Louis pushing Sam
away, with him falling to the ground. And soon after, when Louis refuses to
stay at home, with Sam slugging Louis.
This is a film, quite obviously, about
domestic violence between gay men. But in this case, we have so little history,
so little understanding of either figure, that we can only say that the
incidents might be described as exceptional, a result of childish behavior on
both their parts. Certainly, we can sympathize with Louis’ feeling of being
something like a locked-up trophy wife. But we can also perceive why Sam may
wish to ween his friend away from his old gay friends and certainly might be
appalled by the sudden purchase of an expensive sports car and Louis’ inability
to simply stay in for the night of his lover’s return.
In short, this film seems to record an
incident rather than a history of abuse. And, although the film appears to side
with Louis, we can also comprehend much of Sam’s anger. French-Canadian
director Francis Papillon’s short work also leaves us with a question of what
truly will now happen between the couple, Sam arguing just before he has struck
Louis that they “start over,” that perhaps they are simply at a point of
misunderstanding.
But for Louis, it appears, the relationship
is over, and that he can no longer trust Sam. We don’t know either man well
enough to know whether what has occurred may become a regular pattern and an
issue they can perhaps easily settle by setting up some sort of boundaries for
both them, Sam granting Louis more independence, and Louis, having perhaps taken
into account Sam’s disapproval of his previous life, attempting to find some meaningful
activities other than partying at Nadine’s house.
As this short film stands, it appears to
be a warning about domestic abuse without fully considering the issues which
led to this perhaps momentary violence. Perhaps Papillon’s work is simply meant
to be a warning of violence being employed in any relationship, but someone I
don’t get that feeling. I suspect Louis and his attempts to control the other
man’s life is meant to show how he is a villain. Maybe, the film simply needed
to be longer, to further explore what was behind the unfortunate event.
I may also be asking these questions to
some degree because of my memory that when my husband Howard and I first met in
1970, at about the same age as this couple, we were also involved in incidents
of violence, both of us still immature and needing to learn in a world that
doesn’t teach gay men about relationships that, being both very different
people in some respects, we would eventually have to give up certain behaviors
which we felt defined our own sense of being. Yet we survived, and lived
together for 55 years, our anniversary coming up five days from the date I
wrote this piece.
I think
that it might have been more interesting for such a film as I’m Sorry to
explore the fact that men in many societies are unfortunately taught, through
competitive sports and patriarchal attitudes defining gender, to be violent.
And both Howard and I, moreover, had encountered some childhood bullying, being
told by our parents that we needed to learn how to “fight back,” to stand up
for our own rights. Violence is never acceptable in a relationship or marriage,
but it also might be expected. And to immediately turn tail with horror would
end so many ultimately positive gay male relationships. This couple, it
appears, doesn’t necessarily need to “start over,” but to “start again,” with
both men realizing the dangers of attempting to resolve differences with fists.
Los
Angeles, January 31, 2025
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (January 2025).
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