Ana Galizia | Inconfissõ (Unconfessions) / 2017

my uncle, the ghost

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ana Galizia (director) Inconfissõ (Unconfessions) / 2017 [21 minutes]

 

In Unconfessions, Brazilian documentary director Ana Galizia, given by her aunt boxes of photographs and letters that remained from her mysterious and quite colorful uncle, Luis Roberto, attempts to bring some aspects of the man to life.

     Although it is often a touching glimpse of the man who was involved in the Berkeley, California theater scene of the 1970s and 1980s, it ultimately does little more than to create a kind of scrapbook-like portrait of him, particularly such she has added no commentary or even explanation of what she is showing other than reading out a few letters of admiring male lovers and friends, and mentioning near the end how this archive came into being.

      That’s not to say that this work isn’t of interest, particularly to the gay community of that period, so many of who died of AIDS, as did Luis Roberto at a time when the disease was not yet well-known in Brazil. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the recent film directed by Rodrigo de Oliveria, Os Primeiros Soldados (The First Fallen) which explores some of the earliest Brazilian victims of the epidemic living in small Vitória, Brazil during the early 1980s, about the same time that Luis Roberto died, 1986, in São Paulo.

      Here, however, we have only remnants—the numerous snapshots and super 8 films which feature Galizia himself and the many beautiful men who passed through his life, as well as a brief series of photographs of theater performances similar to that of the Bread and Puppet Theater of the 1960s and 70s. And nothing at all is mentioned of Galizia’s career in theater and film including Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), Maldita Coincidência (1979), and O Olho Mágico do Amor (1982). In the most famous of these, however, Spider Woman, he only played a nurse.

     Some of these “remnants,” however are certainly fascinating. Early in the film, in fact, a narrator reads from Luis’ psychological evaluation as a young boy 16-year-old:

 

“His personality: Presents accented traces of inferiority and insecurity, mainly affective. Has an enormous need for validation and projection, adopting a behavior that he himself disapproves of, feelings of guilt, and of not being liked by the group. Attempts to self-affirm through reverie. Sexual and family issues, intensely seeking affection and communication with parents. As a consequence, he is overwhelmed with marked anxious-depressive features. Conclusion: Group psychotherapy is recommended.”

    I don’t know if Luis’ parents encouraged him to enter into group therapy, but I had to laugh since everything the psychiatrist observed is what almost any young gay man of his age feels, or at least did in those days when we were daily taught and shown just how inferior and guilty we should feel for having the sexual desires he had. Obviously, most of us sought out some signs of approval from our parents and other family members, far too often never shown since we could not fully share our full feelings.

     Yet the later photos and letters reveal a beloved and seemingly healthy outgoing individual, relating fully to the like-minded social groups with whom he later allied himself. He appears to have been a beautiful, mercurial clown, who delighted most of his friends, even as he grew more and more ill.

     If only his niece had provided us with some sort of narrative trajectory, a chronological identification of images, a hint about the year he first traveled across the vast spaces of US to New York City and what he did there when he arrived. Did he attempt to perform in off-Broadway or Broadway theater? Where those Bread and Puppet Theater-like images actually of that company? Who did he meet on his travels? Who are these beautiful faces that keep appearing and disappearing? When did Galizia return to Brazil and why? With whom did he study at Berkeley? What roles, if any, did he perform? These and dozens of other questions frustrate the viewer at the very moment when we want most to get to know who the mysterious uncle really was. Alas, his niece offers us only images of a long-ago ghost.

 

Los Angeles, April 17, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).

Gustavo Nieto Roa | Mariposas Verdes (Green Butterflies) / 2017

leap of faith

by Douglas Messerli

 

Katalina Boham, Gustavo Nieto Roa, Mauricio Pichardo, and Idania Velesquez Luna (screenplay), Gustavo Nieto Roa (director) Mariposas Verdes (Green Butterflies) / 2017

 

I must admit, I’m a sucker for political movies, particularly ones in which the underdog is righteously battling the authorities. It must certainly stem from my own strong anti-authoritarian personality, a knee-jerk reaction to all those years of being a such a well-behaved child who grew up to discover all the joys he had been missing, reiterated in the fact that, except for a few years of teaching in a university which I left for those very reasons, I remained self-employed for the rest of my life.

     Columbian director Gustavo Nieto Roa’s 2017 film Mariposas Verdes reads a bit like a high school-level version of a good Eloy de la Iglesia film of the 1960s, this time involving the entire LGBTQ contingent and a few abused others fighting not only the neglect and bigotry of the own parents and their abusive school mates but, in this case, the entire school administration typified by the school principal, Bárbara (Cecilia Suárez) who embodies the conservative attitudes as well of the Columbian church and government.

      Indeed, the adversaries of the outsider world that this film argues for, led by a beautiful gay couple, Mateo (Deivi Duarte) and Daniel (Kevin Bury), are so powerful and the attacks come so fast and furious that the film has some of the suspense of political thrillers such as Costa-Gavras’s 1969 movie Z, Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 All the President’s Men and, yes, de la Inglesia’s 1978 homosexual-driven fight against the oppressive government in The Deputy.

      Yet the very age of these battlers leaves them far more vulnerable, even after they have seemingly suffered so much. Both Mateo and Daniel have grown up in unstable and abusive households. Daniel’s father is a violent patriarch who regularly beats his wife and fights with her every night, holding entirely machismo values. Mateo, the best student in the school, is the son of a money-driven mother who has kicked out his father for not being able to provide sufficiently for the family although he offers the love for the boy of which she is incapable. In short, these children, along with their peers, generally cannot look to their families for support.

     The so-called LGBTQ contingent, consisting of Ángela (Victoria Ortiz), bullied simply for being overweight); Lorena (Juliana Rendon), Mateo’s female confidante; Gabriel (Edward  González), who is moving towards being a transsexual; Daniel, who early on admits his love to Mateo and is Mateo’s strongest protector; and Mateo, who throughout the film is the major spokesman for this group and moves to bring in the radical politics he is learning from the world outside of the closed community, must almost daily do battle with Lucas (Andres Cardona), the principal’s nephew, and his gang of friends. They do battle with Mateo at every moment possible, ending almost always with Mateo and Daniel being punished instead of the bullies themselves. One of their worst activities consists of first brutalizing Ángela and later actually raping her simply as punishment for her not acknowledging Lucas’ mockery of her.

      Gabriel is such an outsider that basically Lucas can do him no harm, but the school makes up for it in finding ways to punish every small infraction, including his wearing earrings. That act of public embarrassment for a boy who regularly puts himself on public display is so tortuous that he whimpers in pain as he is stood up and condemned before the entire school and is suspended for a week. And we realize that the bullying of Lucas is condoned simply because Bárbara’s administrative policies are very similar.

      And far worse than the bullying of their classmates is the support for the bullies themselves by the school director along with her personal vendetta against anything non-normative, which Mateo represents on several levels, including his very intelligence.

      When finally, Mateo and Daniel are caught kissing in the men’s room on camera, Bárbara turns it into horrifying situation in which she uses Daniel’s intolerant and brutal father as a tool to oust Mateo from school during the last days of his senior year, and to break all relations between the two boys, suggesting the father file a lawsuit against Mateo for having corrupted his son.

      Mateo’s sense of injustice by this time is beyond the breaking point, and he can perceive no other way to set the situation straight than himself becoming a performer of a political act that, having now had one suicide and a rape on the school’s record, will surely close down Bárbara’s evil reign, while possibly changing the entire way the authorities think about the intrusion of school leaders upon their student’s personal lives.

   That act, foreshadowed in the very first scenes of the film, consist of the most horrible and unforgiving action possible: Mateo leaps from the top level of the building to his death face-first.

      It is such a gut-wrenching event—one that is played out in smaller, less significant ways by so many and transgender students each year—that it seems almost impossible to forgive the excellent writers and directors of this film for not having presented a more positive solution. Yet we know in our hearts that given the hundreds of ways that the voices of youths still underage go unheard, we comprehend that any major protest or action on their parts would have simply resulted in the same reactions, silence and their suspension and the end of their future educational goals. When the system is out to end the education of their best student, one realizes that there is no justice available because there is no logic involved and few would believe it even possible. And in this sense, we also realize that nearly everyone in this film has been in some way responsible for Mateo’s death, both for acting and refusing to act or even speak out.

     The movie, accordingly is a painful one, with some simplistic presentations, admittedly, of perhaps far too obvious villains; yet we all know that the bullies who daily wear down the energies of gay, lesbian, and transgender children continue to exist in the form of both their peers and often the systems of administration themselves through faculty, school leaders, government, and others in control. This film simply admits a reality that we don’t truly want to face; that the very institutions that we rely upon to educate and protect our children sometimes work toward goals that are at odds with that role.

 

Los Angeles, July 16, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).

Sylvain Coisne | Dylan Dylan / 2017

irrational responses

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sylvain Coisne (screenwriter and director) Dylan Dylan / 2017 [17 minutes]

 

French director Sylvain Coisne’s film about the loss two gay men suffer for their adopted son, Dylan, has an amazing potential to be true tearjerker, and the scenes around the breakdown of their marriage are quite touching and convincing. Yanis and Hugo (Matthieu Dahan and Vincent Marie) are suffering all the difficulties of parents who lose their child, including simple things such as boxing up the boy’s stuffed bear and toys.

     Early on, Yanis is furious with Hugo for attempting to peel away the stars they have posted for their son on the sliding door of the balcony. Their varied feelings of bereavement, moreover, put each other on edge. Had the film expanded and continued to explore this territory, it might have been a somewhat profound short that explored new territory.

     But Coisne immediately thickens the plot with homophobic hate. The two discover their car has been covered over with the word “Mort,” threatening their deaths. Two newspaper reporters, both female (Julia Lacoste and Eglantine Pauget) appear to be stalking them to get an interview. When Hugo puts their son’s teddy bear in the building dumpster, Yanis retrieves it, arguing that if he were to have left it there it would be all over the evening news.

     Much of the plot consists of a trip to a distant motel to which the couple take their boxes of their son’s possessions to toss into a local dumpster, there momentarily rediscovering their love in sex. But even in their isolated spot someone has found them out, their car again covered over with a homophobic slur, the reporters having followed them as well.

     Hugo, moreover, keeps having visions of a lightning storm in which an airplane is hit by a lightning bolt. At another point he sees an image of a plane in the bathwater, which convinces us that perhaps the child died some freak air accident.

     After their sexual reconciliation, Hugo begins to leave as Yanis remains, telling him to pretend that he may never return home.

      I can well imagine is some communities that the death of an adopted child by two gay men might bring about the hostility of the right-wing neighbors. I can comprehend the fact that even the news may be interested in the situation, although any respectable media source would have not seen this incident worthy of coverage. I cannot quite imagine, however, even in the worst corners of the bigoted USA that the two would be threatened with death because of their own child’s death unless there really was an incident of neglect or abuse involved.

      But when Yanis finally speaks to the media team, he mentions that the boy was indeed intrigued by lightning and rain, and ran out every time there was a major storm, much to their chagrin. But the evening of his death, worried that he might attempt to do something similar, they ran into his room to find him already dead of an aneurism.

 

“That night it was thundering. Hugo could not sleep. So he went to see him in his bedroom. Dylan was asleep, facing the wall. But his eyes were open. Ruptured aneurism, they said. Simple. He would have died, even in the bathtub, even in the car, or with another family. It was bound to end up this way.”

      So why haven’t Hugo and Yanis told their “simple” story, if the press was that interested, in the beginning? Why have we, as well, been misled with images of lightning and aircraft? Why didn’t they immediately wash away the words of hate on their car, even if somehow they felt some sense of guilt? Surely in their seemingly upscale community, there must have been other gay or lesbian families whose children died or became ill in the past? And if there were no others, certainly some heterosexual family might have spoken out with sympathy is this particular French community, even if it is some backwater rightest French village akin to an Alabama rural community? And where, at the end of the work, has Hugo gone? Has he left Yanis? The film ultimately brings up more questions than their simple story answers.

     We feel we were purposely made to feel confused by the author, given the real story is the couple’s sadness and perhaps sense of guilt. Coisne has created a mystery where there was none to be found, embedded his work with a sense of hysteria that is hardly believable, and then resolved it without truly exploring the emotions that remain with the troubled gay couple. Perhaps he is attempting to demonstrate the irrational behavior of those who hate. But even the repetition of the child’s name hints that the director might want to have started all over again without the theatrics, telling the story of the couple who loved this boy who just happened to have been homosexuals.

 

Los Angeles, July 31, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2023).

Jovan James | The Jump Off / 2017

stay

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jovan James (screenwriter and director) The Jump Off / 2017 [5 minutes]

 

Public commitment seems to be the hidden agenda of a great many short gay films of the past few years. The issue is not just “coming out,” involving yourself fully with someone of the same sex, but expressing that action to the world at large. I presume after the centuries of pent-up tension given the inability of many LGBTQ figures to express their feelings publicly, has resulted in a situation in the first few decades of the 21st century that people want to make certain their partner is not still afraid to demonstrate their private gay life.

     This is a most certainly a real issue. Just yesterday as we were driving home through Beverly Hills, Howard pointed out a gay couple walking down the street arm around each other. It is not that such sights are rare in Los Angeles, but the fact that Howard still felt it interesting to point out that made be recognize and comment on the fact that my husband for most of the early years of our relationship throughout the 1970s through the 90s had never even held my hand in public, let along put his arm around me as were walking a busy thoroughfare. Perhaps we were too busy arguing; but I also know that he was of the school that we needn’t display our affection in public.

     The couple in US director Jovan Jones short 2017 film are not even quite yet at the point of defining themselves as a couple. But then Nigel (David A. Wallace) and his lover Malik (Michael Rishawn) are black, members of community that is far more resistant to LGBTQ acceptance than liberal white communities throughout the US—let-alone the privileged world of Beverly Hills.

      The film begins with Malik engaged with friends in a local Baltimore outdoor basketball game, the more intellectual Nigel sitting on the side. Their sex, shown briefly in the new few frames, is intense and sincere. But when Nigel even asks Malik to stay the night, the response is what appears to be the usual: “I can’t.”

      He pleads with him, repeating the words. But all Malik can do is turn and kiss him, dress, and prepare to leave. Nigel follows him out the door where, on the porch, they briefly express “good night”; but as Malik moves on, Nigel runs after him and kisses him in public, Malik returning the kiss as the two stand in the dark street expressing their deep love.

      A bicyclist rides by, a friend who mutters, “What the fuck?”

      Malik calls after him, “Tristan,” at the same moment that he pushes Nigel away, throwing him to the ground. Malik hurries off, leaving Nigel obviously to make the decision whether their love is worth the public revelation and violence that inevitably follows.

      In its brief 5-minutes Jovan’s film covers important territory that I would like to see played out more fully in a longer or even a feature film.

 

Los Angeles, May 25, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).

  

Jason Karman | Lions in Waiting / 2017

rookies

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jason Karman (screenplay and director) Lions in Waiting / 2017 [17 minutes]

 

The plot of Canadian director Jason Karman’s 2017 short, Lions in Waiting is so simple it’s hardly worth recounting. A young high school hockey player Ray (Taylor Kare) has just moved with his widowed mother to a new town, where as with all sports competitors he’s greeted by the team leaders with a great deal of suspicion, despite his excellent credentials from the school in Calgary which he’s just left.

     His proud mother (Valerie Sing Turner), having lost his father, almost clings to him with affection, cornering one of the fathers, Kirk (Andy Nez), of two champion players Peter (Derek Kesseler), captain of the team, and Shelby (Zac Bran). Embarrassed by her bragging Ray is even more abashed when she pulls out boxes wrapped cupcakes on account of his birthday.

     But Ray is sensitive in more ways than perhaps even his mother knows. He has arrived late to practice, for which he is reprimanded by the coach, for having been looking at cellphone photos of gay boys his age.

     Evidently, the new boys are forced to wear red sweaters instead of the white team shirts worn by the others, and from that evidence in the first scene there appears to be another boy that’s just joined the team as well, a new goalie, Jeff (Jason Lindner) whose name is never spoken in the film. 

     Back in the lockers the seasoned team players pull down the two “rookie” boys to the floor, rub their faces against it, and piss on them, checking out Ray’s cellphone in the process, the one who discovers it shouting out, “Oh my god, this kid’s got a habit.” Although they clearly sense that he may perhaps be gay, one whispering in his ear “hey pussy…you might actually like it,” the major cry is “This is what happens to “rooks,” boys, presumably mocking their status as new team members.

     Soon after, the coach (Bob Frazer) discovers the video someone took of the hazing episode has been posted on the internet and has gone viral. He’s furious since it’s not only against school rules, but makes the team look bad—although the major actor of the group, Shelby argues that it’s just part of the tradition and, more important, it was fun and funny. The boys who were hazed are not amused, and neither is the coach who suggests it’s not funny, it’s degrading. When Shelby admits that he posted it, he is suspended from the team.

     Now the pressure on Ray is even worse as his teammates purposely push, shove him to the ice, and basically try to injure him to test his determination.

      At home, Ray’s mother worries about her brooding son, reminding him that his playing hockey was something his father wanted, “the choice is yours, hon”—although we already have caught a glimpse of her pride in his playing the sport as well.

      It is no different when they play another team. At one point he is shoved so hard to the floor that it looks like he may not be able to stand and continue the game. But he does finally get up, the coach asking if he wants to sit out the rest of the game, Ray suggesting he’s fine and will remain on the floor.

      As the new round begins, the referee signals Ray to join in the first huddle, another of teammate’s having evidently fouled for moving before the whistle. Ray not only takes the puck under his control, but wins the game for his team.

      His mother, waiting for him outside the locker room wonders why he is so late. Obviously he was celebrating with the others. She is taking him to a celebration dinner, she announces, but he bows out telling her he has other plans.

   

     Those other plans evidently involve the other shy boy Jeff, the two planning a date, made evidently when Ray encountered his profile on one of the sites he frequents. They kiss each other deeply and drive off, Ray obviously having been able to overcome the bigotry of his teammates and bring out his friend with him.

      The film attempts, obviously, to relay a feel-good attitude toward young gay sportsmen, suggesting they too can overcome the homophobia of the locker room if they are tough enough and can attend to their game.

       The only problem is that Karman’s film seems muddled at times, and its values muddied. At several points the “abuse” that we perceive might simply be perceived simply as a testing of mettle of a new teammate, and even the locker room hazing is fairly mind, not truly involving violence in the traditional sense, but once more testing out the new boys to figure out how they might fit in with the team rapport.

      The fact that Ray is homosexual is obvious only if you catch a glimpse from a sideways glance at the picture on his cellphone and quickly can recognize it as an almost nude boy advertising himself one of the gay dating services. Ray is apparently still closeted, although it is clear that is loving mother might easily accept the truth about his sexuality. If he hasn’t told her, we can only wonder why.

      But there is no time, amidst the hockey floor activity to truly develop any of these characters deeply. If his teammates are aware that he is a “fag,” they never mock him for his sexuality or call him names, but seem to accept just as a “habit.”

      And we hardly imagine that Ray has made any remarkable breakthroughs in simply being able to score, the very reason why he probably was invited to join the team.

       We know so little about his friend, that we cannot guess that Ray’s acceptance has also encouraged his friend to succeed, as the film commentary suggests.

        We should be grateful, in fact, that the homophobia in this film is simply hinted at, and may, in fact, not exist at all, the boys simply going through the process that all closed societies do in deciding whether to permit entrance to new members.

        It would be interesting to have discovered what the director felt was so very significant about Ray and his teammates’ behavior that he needed to make a film of it. Even the coach recognizes that his response is based on the changes that schools have undergone and that in his day such a hazing incident would have gone unnoticed. He feels compelled to suspend the stupid braggart who seems to have no regret for his actions, but he doesn’t feel necessarily worried about it, and doesn’t react at all to the way Ray is treated rather brutally on the ice since that seems to be, in part, what the game of hockey is all about. Even he describes their race across the ice and full speed ending in a sudden halt as a “suicide skate,” presumably because an inexpert player might simply crash into the glass.

       And finally, the coach himself seems to be aware of the new boy’s sexuality. Catching him in the bathroom posing shirtless for a picture with his cellphone, he simply suggests he put away the phone and turn his attention to the game at hand. In this Canadian high school, at least virulent homophobia appears to be pretty much under control.

 

Los Angeles, November 13, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2022).

David Lange | Mein Anderer (My Other) / 2017

gay paranoia

by Douglas Messerli

 

David Lange (screenwriter and director) Mein Anderer (My Other) / 2017 [26 minutes]

 

Good boy Leo (Bjön Helge Jochum), having just finished his high school diploma and now working on an internship, is openly gay, but dissatisfied concerning love. With his best female friend Eli, he argues that he is better off without a boyfriend, which evidently for him means he’s better off without sex. Eli describes it as simply meaning that her friend his not yet ready for sex.

     She and her boyfriend invite him to a party, which he’s leery of attending, but finally agrees to attend. There he meets an older drug addict (Alejandro Nicolás), who offers him a joint before later, in the bathroom, inviting him into a toilet stall to share a snort of cocaine.

      They dance and decide to head to his new friend’s house, where they have sex.

    What might have been a simple film about a young unsure gay boy finding sexual fulfillment suddenly turns to a work of what might be described gay paranoia, as Leo wakes up to the reality of what has just happened. In fact, the lug he has gone home with is someone hard to imagine a good-looking kid like Leo being attracted to. But his reaction to the situation goes much further as Leo suddenly realizes that his bedroom partner has fucked him without a condom. Instead of realizing any self-responsibility, he blames “the other” for having taken advantage of him, of having basically drugged him and intentionally fucked him without protection.

       When he confronts the man with whom he wakes up in bed, the other seems unperturbed, rightfully pointing out that Leo hadn’t asked for a condom and moreover that he seemed to fully enjoy it. His diffident attitude further troubles Leo as he wonders whether unprotected sex with others boy is a regular thing for the man with whom he’s just has sex. Apparently, it is.

        Storming out of the house, Leo meets up with his female friend Eli, who at first also doesn’t quite comprehend his terror, and moreover, blames him for not properly choosing the right partner and seeking out proper protection.

        Surely, Leo will now have to have an AIDS test.

        But when he storms out on Eli as well, we realize that Leo is not only an immature being, but that his sexual distancing of himself, his disinterest of participating in parties where he might be seen and, as he puts it, judged or evaluated, is part and parcel of his homosexual hysteria. Always playing the seduced passive, he cannot admit to his own sexual desires or the consequences those desires have.

        In the end, he almost blames his own parents or the generation before him who counseled: “When we are small, we were told: Do whatever you want to do and love what you do. What do you want? Who do you wanna be? You just need to figure it out. Then you’ll be happy.” His credible question: “Is that the way it goes.”

        There is no question that the generation of young gay men coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s must surely have felt just those feelings, that the promises of open gay pleasure promised them by the elders of the day had become their own death knell, that they had been somehow led down at path that turned deadly without their having fully realized the consequences.

        But a young man coming of age in 2017 must surely have realized not only the responsibilities that come with such attitudes, but the fact that HIV-infection, as terrifying as it might be to anyone, was not necessarily a death sentence. And to go around blaming others for his own naivete and obviously unfulfilled desires is not the problem of the other, but of the self.

        We seem to have spawned a whole generation of young men and women who blame the other for all their sexual fears and confusions. A subtly solicited touch, a night that ends with an unexpected turn of events, an attraction that can’t quite be controlled has been hoisted on the shoulders of the “other,” the older, more mature, more self-confident, less paranoid “others” of their world who unnecessarily become the villains for all their sexual insecurities. Rape, unwanted groping, even excessive verbal flirtation are all things to be removed from our encounters with others. But there also are situations when individuals actively engage and wake up with regret, falsely blaming or accusing the “other” for their previous night-before desires and actions. Mistakes are made, but they are not always the fault of someone else.

 

Los Angeles, November 7, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2023).