Cheryl Dunye | Janine / 1990

two candles

by Douglas Messerli

 

Cheryl Dunye (director and actor) Janine / 1990

 

      One of the earliest of Cheryl Dunye’s works, the 1990 work Janine is a monologue in which the narrator lights two candles, filmed in color, before she begins her basically black and white framed tale (the black narrator Dunye sporting a white T-shirt) that, in fact, is about a black and white teenage relationship between herself and a fellow student, Janine with whom she played basketball of Mercy of Mary Academy near Philadelphia.

     Janine lived across the “main line” in the wealthy neighborhoods Lower Merion and Bala Cynwyd side with a working mother who drove a BMW, whereas Dunye grew up in far more rustic circumstances in Philadelphia. Although Dunye has sought out the relationship with the blue-eyed, blonde Janine, she admits that, even after they had seeming become friends, there “always was a constant struggle.” “I felt insignificant,” she suggests, and wanted to be more…well white.”

     One incident speaks volumes, as Dunye describes that after a basketball practice she showered in Janine’s house, putting shampoo directly onto her hair, when her friend, observing the act, intervened: “That’s so wrong. We don’t do it that way.” Later, Janine would offer Dunye her used clothes as if her friend’s mother couldn’t afford to properly dress her.

      As she grows older, Dunye begins to perceive her sexual difference, visiting lesbian bars and, always off campus, gradually moving into sexual relationships with other women. Finally, in the 12th grade, Janine’s friend reveals to her that she is lesbian. At first, Janine seems quite at ease with the fact, but later calls to tell her that she cried for a long while after. Finally, Janine’s mother calls, suggesting that she will pay for Dunye to visit a doctor to help her with her problem.

       That ended the relationship between the girls. Yet Dunye felt, justifiably, that Janine and her mother had had the last the word, and sometime later, on a Thanksgiving, called her up, only to be reminded by Janine’s constant mention of the great times they had shared in school—few of which Dunye recalled since her mind had far more centered about her own sexual issues—her “dear” friend from the past announcing that she was now living in Washington, D.C. where she had a $30,000 job and, like her mother, drove a BMW. Several times, apparently, she mentioned to Dunye that she is soon to be married. But the final straw was when Janine brought up the fact that several of their fellow female students had had babies out of wedlock, which Janine felt was a sin.

       Slowly we observe, the two candles lit in the first moments, have now gone out. The narrator has finally realized, with a new self-confidence, that her life and Janine’s have gone in quite opposite directions.

       It is the simple frankness of this confessional narrative that puts all the weight in Dunye’s court, leaving the seemingly perfect Janine looking like a somewhat mindless bigot. The happily ever-after life that Janine is looking forward to will never be as honest, robust, and exciting as Dunye’s life, of which the short film itself is testament.

 

Los Angeles, July 26, 2020

Reprinted from My Queen Cinema blog (July 2020).

 

André Téchiné | J'embrasse pas (I Don’t Kiss) / 1991

touching the untouchables

by Douglas Messerli

 

Isabelle Coudrier-Kleist, Michel Grisolia, Jacques Nolot, and André Téchiné (screenplay), André Téchiné (director) J'embrasse pas (I Don’t Kiss) / 1991

 

The significant French director André Téchiné has spent his long career, as a member of the second-generation New Wave, exploring alternate human relationships—particularly those that involve gay and lesbian sexuality.

      His 1991 film, I Don’t Kiss, however feels very personal. Like the young almost cocky, certainly self-assured young 20-year-old hero of this film, Pierre (Manuel Blanc), the director himself grew up in the Pyrenees and escaped his traditional educational and parental upbringing in a move to Paris. Today he lives in an apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, which represents the pick-up place of his gay, mostly elderly, figures. Perhaps, like Pierre, Téchiné, at first, was not prepared for what he was about to encounter. He, too, arrived in Paris from the Pyrenees wanting to be an actor and writer—the latter at which he succeeded—and began to embrace gay sexuality.

     The major figure in this film, however, sees himself as an absolute heterosexual, attempting to first seduce a nurse, Evelyne (Hélène Vincent), primarily caring for her aged and not very agreeable mother. Although she is entranced by the sexual prowess of her young, literarily starving lover, she quickly perceives that he does not truly love her, feeding him money, which he immediately rejects and escapes from the bedroom accommodations she has offered him.

     Pierre is a purist, and even though he finds work at the hospital kitchen working as a dish-washer (a job I once had as well—boring and terribly messy, as you rinse and wash the plates of others) and begins to study drama; he is a horrible failure at both jobs. He can’t act, even when it comes to Hamlet’s notable monologue whose lines he cannot finish, and when he pretends he is ill to skip his dishwashing duties, he is fired. 

     Homeless, robbed of his only possessions he carries in a canvas bag, he has no alternative but to return to the gardens where he has witnessed an elderly gay man, Romain (Philippe Noiret) pick up a young boy. Shocked by that encounter Pierre quickly exits the car, refusing to return for a ride to his temporary home.

      After a quick trip to Spain with Romain, a journey which Pierre might have suspected would lead to a sexual encounter and financial renumeration, turns in a different direction when his would-be lover picks-up another young man. Pierre escapes his new “paradise” yet again for Paris, returning to the Gardens to become a male prostitute, informing his clients: "I don't kiss, I don't suck, I don't get fucked". The question is, what does he really do, presumably letting them masturbate him or letting him fuck them? In short he has become a truly limited being, unable to express his own sexuality fully.

      Arrested by the police for his behavior, Pierre falls in love with a female prostitute and, soon after, is beaten to near-dear just previous to being raped by her pimp and others, who force the prostitute, Ingrid (Emmanuelle Béart) to watch. The “Noli me tangere” innocent has suddenly been fully introduced into a violent gay world.

      His answer is to join the French paratroops, ready to “lean into the void,” parachuting into the night. Yet strangely, upon returning home to visit his brother, he reports that he did not hate the capitol city, but simply wasn’t prepared for it. On his way back to Paris, the former innocent stops at a beach, removing his clothing and entering the sea, suggesting both a cleansing of his past role as a prostitute and an embracement of his male body, an acceptance, perhaps, of a sexuality he has previously refused.

     Téchiné does not quite hint of what Pierre’s future will entail. But we do realize he will not be a passive but active figure in the determination of his future sexual life, wherever that may lead him. Yet “leaning into the void” does suggest that the sexuality he once feared will now be an acceptance of the dark attractions that once so troubled him. Perhaps he will now at least kiss, perhaps even suck and fuck. If nothing else, we know he has now been touched.

 

Los Angeles, February 10, 2020

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (February 2020).

Peter Weir | The Plumber / 1979, US 1981

plumbing into different worlds

by Douglas Messerli

 

Peter Weir (screenwriter and director) The Plumber / 1979, US 1981

 

Not a lot happens of serious consequence in Peter Weir’s 1979 film, The Plumber, except that the small bathroom inside the bedroom of the Cowper’s apartment is utterly destroyed by the building plumber. He not only destroys their previously well-working bathroom, but quickly warns the graduate-student anthropologist, Jill Cowper (Judy Morris) of far greater dangers, including a great rush of fetid waters waiting to cascade into their safe haven just over their heads.

      Although Jill and her scientific research husband, Brian (Robert Coleby) seem, at first, perfectly attune as an academic-oriented pair, it quickly becomes apparent—particularly when the presumptuous and socially-self-conscious plumber, Max (Ivar Kants)—that something ominous and possibly even evil has just entered their lives. Certainly, Jill perceives it, as the intruder not only demands entry into their house, but casually and sometimes not so casually begins to intrude upon her territory. While her husband is off to his lab in an attempt to woo a trio of WHO (World Health Organization) officials who may, if he can convince them, offer him a job for several years in Geneva, Jill is left at home—trying to finish her Master’s Thesis—to deal with the sleazy, lying and, yet, somewhat charming Max, a figure who, clearly, is not only terribly conscious of class differences, but is resentful for the way he, a self-proclaimed would be rock-star, has been treated throughout his life. We later hear one of his songs, an imitative version of music by Bob Dylan and others of his ilk.

     It’s utterly amazing how truly dense were reviewers such as Janet Maslin of The New York Times when this film first appeared in New York, who simply did not perceive how effectively Weir had set up the entire series of Max’s feelings of cultural abuse. Maslin mockingly argues that his major argument is that figures such as Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger refused to sell out, creating “real” political statements in their music. I might suggest she should see the movie again, and deal with the real hurt expressed that Max feels concerning even the signs he approaches upon entry to the houses in which works, often devoted to signs that suggest the “trade” should enter here, and the thousands of social dismissals—with which Jill equally provides him—given his inability to speak proper English, as if Australian English or even American English might be recognized as “proper” in what he calls her “posh” world. Dylan and Jager, I’d argue, are beside the point.

     Strangely, Weir presents Brian’s and Jill’s “world” as anything but posh. Yes, she and her husband are surrounded by New Guinea totems and artifacts, witness to their years of studying the native cultures. In fact, her husband, in response to a sense of guilt for her own terrorization of the intruder—who her husband is too busy to even encounter—is presented a gift of an expensive watch. But generally, this couple seems to be living at the low end of what Max might describe as “posh.” Their lives are just a few levels above the graduate students they have long been. Their treasures are artifacts of love of their past experiences, not monetary trophies.

      Yet, their lives are filled with a sense of apartness and superiority. Despite little evidence that the New Guinea tribes have continued in their cannibalistic custom of eating the bodies of their own dead relatives, Brian is convinced that the tradition continues, and accounts for the tribes’ current physical debilitations by the fact that the tradition continues, attempting to convince the WHO committee who visit him during his research, despite everyone else’s convictions.

      Jill, in her early encounters with the New Guinea tribes, has her own story to tell. One night, as she sat in her tent alone, a native entered, and proceeded for many hours to scream and shout, forcing her to remain silent, attentive, and passive. When the dawn appeared, she carefully took a bowl of goat milk beside her, raised it over her head, and threw it into the face of her aggressor, who broke down into a nearly endless crying fit.   

     Max has clearly chosen the wrong woman to aggress against, despite Jill’s own terrorized sense of reality throughout the film. Despite Max’s absurd attempt to destroy her and her husband’s lives by taking over even their basic bathroom privileges, he is no match for the society that dominates his.

      At a party that Brian insists his wife host for his WHO “friends,” Jill serves her “too hot” chutney. When one of the guests determines he must use the unavailable bathroom, he is trapped between the temporary constructions holding up the “supposed” reconstruction of the plumbing, and must be saved from death by the others at the party. Brian responds like the perfect host, serving up dose and after dose of good cognac, ultimately making him the hero of the evening, resulting, the next day, by him being awarded his Geneva position.

      But Jill is still resolute in her attempt to destroy their would-be intruder. The police arrive—obviously after she has called them—and, after searching his truck, discover several of her possessions, including a scarf and her beloved watch (which previously she has kept out of his way, but finally has laid out for his temptation). Like the New Guinea native who entered her tent, presumably to tell his own sad story, she has transformed the intruder into a crying child, as Max screams out his protests that she is a “bitch.”

     The Cowpers can now move comfortably on to their Swiss retreat, where they will presumably do further research into cultures of which they do not completely comprehend.

 

Los Angeles, March 7, 2017

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2017).

 

Roberto Nascimento | Boyfriend / 2021

the problem with walking away

by Douglas Messerli

 

Josh McKenzie and Roberto Nascimento, screenplay, based on a story by Márcia Sasano), Roberto Nascimento (director) Boyfriend / 2021 [20 minutes]

 

Brazilian born director Roberto Nascimento lived for 20 years in New Zealand before moving to Sydney, Australia. This New Zealand-made film is a remarkably simple in its story. An older man, Bob (José de Abreu) rents a young “hot” boy Levi (Josh McKenzie) to be his boyfriend for a long weekend. And that is basically the end of the story.

     Yet in the 20 minutes of this film, we gradually get to know these two figures, young and old, the one somewhat saddened for having lost his youth, the other perhaps a bit afraid of what he knows he will be facing, particularly given he apparently mostly services older men (“They pay better.”), in the not-so-distant future. Levi, as cute and utterly charming as he is, with dyed blond hair, a carefully kept and exercised body is, as he admits at one point, already 30—presumably the 30s being the magic age when he will no longer be in such demand.

 

   In this instance, sex is not the big issue. From the beginning Bob determines to keep his clothes on, suggesting that Levi can dress as he likes—even stay naked if he desires—as he orders from room service a lovely dinner after which they watch a movie. A great deal of time is spent showing Levi showering, brushing his teeth (dressed only in his underwear in front of the wide hotel window that looks over the street, hinting that he may also be an exhibitionist of sorts), lathering his body with lotion, and participating in similarly toilet activities. We know, in nothing else, that he keeps his body spotless.

     The next morning, they share Levi’s favorite Havana coffee at a nearby shop, and they go clothes shopping at a second-hand clothing shop, both clearly Levi’s suggestions. Afterwards, they visit a second-hand book shop, perhaps Bob’s request. Yet, when Bob mentions Gauguin, Levi immediately relates his full name, Paul Gauguin, mentioning that he was Van Gough’s friend. Soon they are on to a history, shared by Bob, of lapins or rabbits.

      On their way back to the hotel, Levi spots a completely drugged out boy, Jakob (Christopher Moore) who seems in such a bad way that he insists they call the police, Bob clearly admiring his caring sense of responsibility, as they wait for help.

   They move on, back to the hotel where, finally, they have sex. After Bob comments that in comparison with his photo on the website, Levi is much more beautiful in person. And we recognize, if we haven’t previously, that these two disparate individuals have struck up a true relationship, a friendship the links them closely despite their differing ages.

      Over the remaining time of the film, they talk about a wide variety of topics—why Levi paints his nails yellow (his mother used to paint them when he was a child to keep him from biting his nails), how Bob had always wanted a daughter (he has two sons, his youngest son being older than Levi), Bob’s insistence that at his age he was “as fit” as Levi is now, vague information about Bob’s wife of 38 years (who has been dead now for 3 years), that his adventures with Levi represent his very first time with a rent boy, and that 50 years before he had sex with a man (obviously, like so many straight men curtailing his sexual desires from a need to maintain a semblance of heteronormative behavior.) “I was 18. I had a friend I was very close to. We kissed once. But it was not an option where I am from. Not the place, not the time. You are lucky. For living in progressive times.”

     Bob reaches over to run his hand through Levi’s hair: “Beautiful hair.”

     “Thank you. My mom doesn’t like it.”

    Despite their rapport, however, something seems to be wrong with Levi. His dreams are filled images of home movies of him as child, running and moving with total abandonment through the yard. But he awakens from the sound of his own heavy breathing, coming in short spurts. He dresses and goes for a run.

      It’s rather apparent that he is recalling a glorious childhood and youth but fears for its end, the closure of what is called youth and perhaps the future disavowal or refusal for his professional services.

      He returns and showers, Bob still in bed asleep.

      Once again they go out to a strange food-stand for breakfast where Bob talks about his experiences in Macau, evidently not very pleasant ones. They stop in a record shop. Bob talks about a performer who changed lavish costumes after every song and who quoted poetry. And once more they seem both to enjoy the day together.

      Night comes, and it is clearly time for Levi to pack up and leave. He’s already sent Bob his bill. “Is it time?” Bob asks. “Yeah.”

      “I had a nice time. You’re good company.”

      “So are you. Thank you.”

     It is clear through their almost teary eyes that they are both reticent to call it a day. And they stand looking at one another, shaking hands, perhaps afraid even to kiss. “See you later, Bob,” says Levi as he turns to leave. The camera follows his slow walk to the elevator and catches a look of slight panic for a moment on Bob’s face.

      This truly gentle expression of something that is usually portrayed as heinous and mean provides us with a totally different perspective of what being a male “prostitute” or “rent boy” is all about. Their time together is clearly something they both needed, Bob seeking a kind of younger self and a surrogate for the male lover of so many years before, Levi obviously seeking a father (he never speaks of his own) and someone who can help to make him feel younger as he approaches what for such prostitutes might be described as middle-age. Together they have shared a couple of days in a kind of urban Eden, reaching across their experiences to find meaning in each other’s lives. And perhaps, for one of the first times ever, Levi is tempted to not just walk away.

 

Los Angeles, April 19, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (April 2024).

Frank Mosvold | Summer Blues / 2002

endless remorse

by Douglas Messerli

 

Frank Mosvold (screenwriter and director) Summer Blues / 2002 [25 minutes]

 

Working in a meat-packing plant, Mads (Kristoffer Berre Alberts) overhears that at a recent party his girlfriend Eva (Hanne Backe Hansen) got drunk and tried to have sex with every man at the event. Mads, a sweet and self-effacing young man, mentions the incident to Eva, to which she replies, “Nothing happened. Nothing serious,” he answering that he doesn’t want to hear anything about it and wants to continue on as “if nothing happened.”

     Although not truly essential to the story that follows, his reaction gives us a clue to his personality, a rather passive, peace-loving man, who also, however, won’t quite face up to the reality of sex, even when it comes to his own feelings.

 

    Immediately after this opening scene, Mads and Eva welcome Mads’ long-time friend Kristian (Tord Vandvik Haugen) and his apparently former local girlfriend Silje (Julia Schacht) for a weekend getaway at a summerhouse by the sea, where evidently Mads and Kristian grew up. The return appears to be an annual event since Kristian has left for the city.

     Almost immediately the boys strip off their clothes, put on their bathing trunks, dive into the water, and frolic around with one another in the manner of boyhood friends, although we sense something a bit closer between them. The two women watch they boyfriends, sensing also that they are not fully welcome in the rebonding of the two after their long absence from one another. It is only now that we discover that Kristian has gone off to study. Mads also tells him how much he’s been missed.

     Despite Mads’ insistence he hasn’t wanted to hear anymore about the incident he’s heard about Eva, he nonetheless brings it up, obliquely, as a subject with his old friends, and Eva sits for most of the time, apart from Mads, moping. Silje certainly senses there is something between Eva and Mads that doesn’t bode well. And Eva later argues that they shouldn’t have “come here”—meaning the summerhouse—they should have stayed at home.

     Eva perceives, moreover, that their relationship is not working out, and she wants to break up.

     Throughout the conversation, Mads maintains silence, almost as if assenting to her conclusions.

    Soon after, Mads shares his feelings about his relationship with Kristian, expressing how strange it feels given the way things have turned out. The two boys had agreed to stay in close touch with each other, but haven’t, and now seen each other so seldom.

   And even Silje, far more comfortable with the situation that Eva, asks Kristian when he’ll be returning. When he suggests “next summer,” she responds, “Surely you’ll be here for Christmas.”

      The group drinks heavily, with Eva remaining apart.

     Soon after, Mads becomes sick, vomiting, with Kristian attending to him, putting him into bed in his own room, and removing his T-shirt. As Kristian returns to the living room, Silje observes

his own indeterminacy, as if he is questioning something. In a matter of moments, he returns to the bedroom, asking if Mads is asleep, and when he receives no response, he carefully pulls off the covers, strokes his friends’ chest, and finally bends down to kiss his belly. As the camera pulls away, we see him unbuttoning Mads’ pants.

      It is now clear that the boys have been far closer than their current friendship suggests, and that, at least, Kristian has been in love with Mads.

      But the next morning, Eva asks if Mads has gone swimming so early, Kristian responding that he thought he was in “their” room (meaning the one Mads shares with Eva), she volleying back, “I thought he was in your room.” Both Eva and Kristian immediately go on separate searches for Mads.

     Kristian discovers him by the ocean, Mads immediately telling him to “get lost,” arguing that he’s embarrassing himself by being there. “Why,” queries Kristian.

      “You undressed me, right? Put me to bed.”

      “Yes.”

      “I was awake, Kristian. I was awake when you touched me.”

      “Why didn’t you say anything?”

     Obviously, that is the most important question. Why did Mads play dead, allow himself to endure what he now pretends was a kind of abuse, a rape? His behavior was surely also an acquesiance. 

       Mads immediately leaves his friend to follow him, returning to the house and attempting to make it up with Eva, his only solution since it’s apparent that he cannot accept in the morning what he permitted in the night.

       It is the same old story, told again and again, in gay film, of how young men who desperately want to be seduced, so often by their best friends or someone to who they have long been in a relationship, but cannot accept the reality of the experience. And, frankly, this time around, in Norwegian director Frank Mosvold’s film—whose work has long been sensitive to straight boys and grown men who have precisely such mixed feelings—I grew angry. Why, after more than a century of watching these would-be gay boys attempting to come to terms with their macho values, are we still encountering the very problems at the beginning of a new century (and, of course, this has continued at least 25 years into that new century)? Do young boys never learn? Must each young teenager involved in such a situation encounter the same angst over and over? Even with all the filmmaking that has gone on since the 1970s, with the increasing recognition of LGBTQ individuals and their attendant problems, we seem, at least in cinematic fiction, to be repeating ourselves endlessly. Are young boys today still so dumb?

        Perhaps what filmmakers are still showing us has nothing to do with today’s reality. Or, more likely, we have simply been deluding ourselves. Maybe many of the changes those of us in the LGBTQ community have perceived were merely superficial, an acceptance of our existence but with the significance of what that means to individuals not truly having sunk into the minds and bodies of the society at large.

    Predictably, the central figure of this short film at first refuses to speak any longer with his now “former” best friend who is forced into a quick retreat, Mads, of course, finally coming round to hug and kiss Kristian goodbye.

     But surely by the time Kristian returns he will have married Eva, if nothing else just to protect himself from what happened between him and Kristian on this particular summer escape. Like most such married men, he’ll find little solace in the monogamous relationship and will someday, when he least expects it, pull at his sexual chains and attempt an escape, severely wounding his wife, any children they may have had, and himself in the process.

     In gay film after gay film, there is a sense of inevitability, of heteronormative-striving gay boys having failed to be able to stare deeply enough into their own consciousness to realize that their queer desires will not simply go away but will be with them until their dying day, that their “summer blues” will likely transform into an endless remorse.

 

Los Angeles, March 19, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema (March 2024).