Sacarias Kiusalaas | When Harry Met Santa / 2021 [commercial advertisement]

a season for love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Rikke Sofie Jacobsen (copywriter), Sacarias Kiusalaas (director) When Harry Met Santa / 2021 [4 minutes] [commercial advertisement]

 

In 2021 the Norwegian Postal Service (Posten) released an extraordinary 4 minute advertisement on Norwegian television. In this brief commercial, a handsome middle aged man, Harry (Johan Ehn) happened to be up late one Christmas Eve getting a drink of water when he met up with Santa (Terje Stromdahl) suddenly appearing in his living room. The two, surprised to see one another, are mesmerized, locking eyes for a moment before Santa suddenly disappears up the chimney to continue on his way.

  Christmas follows upon Christmas with Harry joining in family dinners with his sister and brothers and their children, one year attending a church concert wherein his niece appears in the chorus (Stockholm Music Gymnasium Youth Choir 22), he making faces at her while she attempts to sing with a straight face.

    But now Harry, each year, looks forward to Santa’s presence and presents, decorating a special tree ornament for Santa, sharing cookies and coffee with him, and, upon one occasion, waking up on the couch to see Santa sitting in a nearby chair, telling him that he was snoring.

    One year Santa brings him a special tree ornament of himself in black from the chimney dust. But increasingly Harry finds it more and more difficult to spend so little time with a man he now clearly loves. And as the two grow closer, even Santa recognizes their long period between their encounters, announcing to Harry, “I’ll be back next year.”

   But Harry’s growing older, checking up on his image in the mirror. He finally sits down and, like a child, writes a note to Santa at the North Pole: “All I want for Christmas is you," ending with a handwritten emoji of a heart.

    That year on Christmas Eve, presumably 2021, the doorbell rings, and a postman from the Norwegian Posten stands there with a small stack of wrapped gifts for Harry, surprised to find no Santa in sight. He turns back to his living room to discover Santa there, no longer having to hurry off since his new “elves” are hard at work.

    Finally the couple, Harry and Santa, have some time alone together, and Harry moves toward Santa as they kiss, and kiss once more, over the years having fallen in love.

  As the camera moves back to witness the men kissing through the window, the following words appear across the screen: “In 2022, Norway marks 50 years of being able to love whoever we want.”

    This truly beautiful ad, unimaginable in the US, was beloved in Norway and appeared without controversary. In England British academic Katie Edwards, writing in The Independent declared that the film was based on “anti-gay tropes,” villainizing gay male sexuality, since two men kissing is represented as inherently a sexual act while a man and a woman kissing is considered a societal norm. I have no idea what she is talking about in this case. After all the men aren't having sex, but simply demonstrating their love. If they have sex after, so too might of a mom of a child who witnesses her kissing Santa Claus.

     The speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly, László Kövér accused the advertisement of desecrating Christmas. Others argued it sexualized Christmas.

     But Santa, actually living near Norway for most of the year, is already a secular symbol of the religious event so I don’t comprehend why if we can imagine a Mrs. Claus, we might not imagine that Santa has lived alone for all these years and finally found the man he was long seeking. Santa is sexualized either way. And, of course, Eartha Kitt’s 1953 song “Santa Baby” is about as sexual as you can get.

   This Norwegian add brings god jul to my heart in a way I’ve never quite witnessed before in a filmed advertisement. And certainly this 2021 ad is one I will never forget.

 

Los Angeles, December 3, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).

 

 

 

Peter Strickland | Blank Narcissus (Passion of the Swamp) / 2022

sour cream

by Douglas Messerli

 

Peter Strickland (screenwriter and director) Blank Narcissus (Passion of the Swamp) / 2022 [12 minutes]

 

   Playing on the lovely and campy gay fantasies of James Bigood (Pink Narcissus) and Wakefield Poole (Boys in the Sand), British director Peter Strickland, transforms a narcissus-like adventure story akin to Poole’s while twerking into what he describes as “mockucommentary.” While using the same kind of lush homoerotic visuals of those filmmakers, Strickland counters the images by employing a narrator (Michael Brandon) who speaks an aged New York accent that utterly contradicts and intrudes upon the sexual enticements of the film’s hero Wade (Sebastien Kapps), a beautiful young adventurer exploring the swamps.

     The mysterious beauty studying the map of his explorations is pulled back into the street scenes of the narrator’s youth, reminding him of a “pick up” who stood outside admiring the narrator’s window dressing in the department store where he worked, different from all the others only by not being brought home from the Saint Mark’s baths; his allure, so the narrator reports, leads Brandon to turn him into a lover: we “balled each other every night.”

     The suddenly unexpected—and quite hilarious—tree snake in this empty paradise is explained away as having originally been a stud hiding in the papier mâché tree poking his cock out of the gnarled hole, which the hero Wade refused to suck after he found out he was a Republican. A later replacement from the Saint Mark’s bath came down with “the clap” (gonorrhea), so what we see in the film, so the narrator tells us, is a cheap prosthetic device and the cum Sebastian swallows is just sour cream.

      Soon after, when upon witnessing his own image in a small pool of water, Sebastian masturbates his lovely uncut cock; yet we are told that the landlord had interrupted the scene to tell them that he was raising their rent, and poor Wade couldn’t get an erection. Sour cream was again used to simulate the semen along with a great deal of baking soda to help the small pool bubble with the pleasure of receiving the offering of his cum. They couldn’t afford to shoot the scene over again.

      A bit earlier as we watch with wide open eyes as the young Adonis strips naked twice, the narrator takes the opportunity to tell us their relationship begin to sour after a year during its final months. The excitement in his lover’s eyes disappeared, and the two moved to different beds, attributed to Brandon’s snoring. They still had sex, but it seemed to have lost all its enchantment. He wonders what the beauty looks like today as an old man, does he suffer arthritis like Brandon does. Would he even recognize him if he’s still living—a slight allusion to the possibility that our young Narcissus might have been a victim of AIDS.

      In short, the real Narcissus is now the filmmaker himself who as an old man is interested only in his own life experiences having no longer the interest or plain good sense to allow his erotic short to speak on its own terms, undermining it at each point with the intrusions of the reality of the past, the ridiculousness of everyday life.

     Through the heavy irony of the commentary, we are reminded that all such sexual reveries and pornography in general are merely illusions, the real men (and women) merely contorting their own bodies before the camera to suggest the ecstasy and rapture of sexual bliss. Strickland’s film shamelessly removes the lacquer from the idol standing before our voyeuristic eyes. The story he tells, in fact, is much more interesting and poignant than the pleasurable images unspooling through light and motion. But strangely, we are so pulled into the images while our minds protest the information we are hearing. It is a true battle between our senses, rational and erotic, that perhaps never will be resolved.

 

Los Angeles, December 8, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (December 2022).

 

Steve Lukens | The Romeo Files / 2013

the best of all possible worlds

by Douglas Messerli

 

Robert Guthrie (screenplay), Steve Lukens (director) The Romeo Files / 2013 [15.42 minutes]

 

It almost appears that the writer of this short film has been reading too many of my film descriptions, confusing my summary plots as being miniature screenplays. For if there was ever an example of writer—to use the old saw used against writers for centuries—who tells his story instead of shows it, this is the textbook example, and explains why that method basically never works.

     Tyler (Jake Namaroff), who lives on a sheep farm but doesn’t want to be reminded of it, describes his life in near Panglossian terms, seeing most everything it is life as representing the very best possible world, including his “in the closet” romance with the school womanizer Matt (David Broyles) trapped in a town where nothing much happens, and the fact that church-going rules the community in which he resides. For him “it’s alright” as he keeps repeating again and again. He reads his pastor Harvey’s sermon about looking for love even in the small places as something definitely to pay attention to, probably because if Pastor Harvey knew of his sexual inclination he would damn it. The creators of this “spiritual” yarn lost me accordingly one minute and seven seconds of the film. I needed to see some proof of everything being just so hunky-dory as Tyler claims.

      Certainly his hunky schoolmate Matt is rather a rather hunky cutie, even if no one seems to have any notion of the root of the second part of that 1866 slang phrase.

     But even Matt doesn’t seem to offer Tyler what he truly wants, to be able to maybe hold hands once in a while at school or at the very least talk to one another, since Matt, evidently heading up one of the popular school groups, won’t even say hello to his lover in their presence.

       And, of course, if Tyler wants to come out at school, he certainly will have to come out to his parents who already complain that he treats his bicycle like it were his kid. What might they think then of a boyfriend or potential husband?

       Tyler doesn’t like girls, despite Matt’s notorious reputation of being heterosexually active. And Matt would love him to date a girl, if no other reason that it might serve as “cover.” Maybe, Samantha might be the right one to date since she seems to be stalking Tyler.

     In fact, it turns out, Samantha, who’s seen the two boys together and knows they are lovers, reveals to Tyler that she’s a lesbian, so it’s great to pretend to date her since now the two can be best friends and share everything with one another.

        But does he need to tell Matt that he’s been having sex with her, when actually his dates have often served as a cover so that she might meet up with Lexie, a girl from a few towns over? Does he truly need to lie not only about Samantha but to the boy he’d like call his “boyfriend” in public.

        Something is wrong down on the sheep farm, I can only imagine, even if Tyler keeps proclaiming everything’s just swell. He’s particularly hurt when Matt cuts him short for just saying “hi” as he passes by with two of his friends. And now even Samantha isn’t talking to him, so Tyler tells us.

        Samantha eventually forgives him, but Tyler, upon confronting Matt, realizes that Matt is far from ready to “come out,” and I’m not so certain Tyler himself, by the end of this film, really knows what “coming out” means. At least there’s a new boy who’s just joined his class. I guess that’s what Pastor Harvey means by taking joy in the little things. But even Tyler seems to want more, a more sincere lover than Matt, even desiring the “best” of love, whatever that might mean.

        I presume this film was made by some sort of Christian organization that wants gays and lesbians to feel accepted in their congregations. But even Pangloss can’t make being gay in a small a town where nothing happens and everyone goes to church a very easy proposition. At least Samantha gets out of town from time to time and appears to being looking forward someday soon of leaving for good, while Tyler, despite not wanting to be associated with his family’s livestock, will probably settle down some day as a shepherd of a flock of Christian friends, if nothing else. And even his cuteness and charm can only take him so far down on the ranch.

 

Los Angeles, June 12, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2022).

Lorenzo Caproni | La collana (The Necklace) / 2014

guardian of the jewels

by Douglas Messerli

 

Lorenzo Caproni (screenwriter and director) La collana (The Necklace) / 2014 [11 minutes]

 

Nothing really happens in Lorenzo Caproni’s short film, The Necklace; or perhaps I should say, everything happens inside Marco’s (Emanuel Caserio) spinning head as he attempts to readjust to a world of which he is probably quite innocent.

    Sent off as a courier for a precious necklace to be used in a photo shoot, Marco arrives a bit earlier than what the photographer, Giorgio (Antonio De Matteo) remembers as the time of the appointment. As his assistant Anna (Marina Savino) ushers Marco in, he quickly commands her to call the models, the makeup artists, and secondary photographer to see if they can arrive sooner than expected.

   In the meantime, Giorgio, a handsome man perhaps in his middle 30s carefully eyes the lean and shy courier, at first simply attempting to engage him in conversation: does he like the flower arrangement his has prepared for the backdrop? A man of few words, Marco indicates it is just fine. Marco himself peruses the studio walls, wondering if the photos were all his own. Giorgio answers that some of them are, while others are simply images he admired.

    Giorgio then attempts to take a few photos of Marco, who immediately backs away, even holding up his hands to block the camera, claiming that he is simply not photogenic. The one picture Giorgio snaps proves that he may be right.

    But there are other ways a gay man such as Giorgio have of possibly reeling in young handsome boys such as Marco. He simply pulls of his own shirt, revealing his hirsute chest.

    When Marco, in slight terror asks what he’s doing, Giorgio acts as if it were an everyday occurrence, reaching down to pull off his pants, and soon after removing his underpants. "Then you take pictures of me."

   Marco, almost speechless, argues that he doesn’t even know how to use it. It’s automatic claims Giorgio as if the camera itself took its own pictures.

   Marco expresses concern that someone might enter the gallery, but Giorgio is perfectly willing to “take the risk.”

      One snap of the camera and Marco is clearly hooked, clearly not on the act of picture-taking, but the image of a naked man before him. He continues snapping photos as if he was a born photographer. And we can see by his facial gestures that he is overwhelmed and quite enjoying the process, perhaps one of the few moments in his life when someone has allowed him to take a chance, to open himself up to the risk of feeling anything, let alone sexual desire.

    Anna soon after enters reporting that the retinue of models and others have arrived. We can almost imagine that Marco is both startled by her sudden entry—although she acts as if her employer standing naked before a camera were the most ordinary thing in the world—and crestfallen since he few moments of freedom have been snatched back.

     He now returns to his job as courier, as the group of 7 individuals rush into the room with Giorgio briefly retiring behind the black photo curtains to redress. Marco’s entire demeanor is altered as he returns to the sky young man, looking away from the others as if he has not received permissions, somehow, to even stare open-eyed at their busy actions.

    The model, finally seated, is read for the necklace he carries in his briefcase. He opens the case revealing the jeweled relic and placing it gently around the model’s neck.

    Giorgio quickly returns, still buttoning up his shirt, and beings the shoot. We see Anna and Marco, a few minutes later, scanning the digital images he’s already handed them in a small scandisk.

    “I saw the pictures,” Marco quietly tells Giorgio when they meet up after the shoot. “Bravo!” “Thank you,” answers Giorgio looking at the boy straight into his face. “Are you still on schedule?”

    For a moment you can almost see Marco pausing as if to say he might alter that schedule, but he abandons his momentary musing almost with a smile to answer “Yes.”

    Looking up into Giorgio’s face, he continues “I’ll be going. And…if you need the jewels….”

    “We’ll call.”

    It is as if they have made a vague appointment to meet up again. Giorgio asks Anna to show the young man out, she turning back to her boss as she does so to mouth the words: “Slut!”

    Another male already stands in the background with his shirt off, ready to play the model to Giorgio’s next shoot.

    Director of more than 10 short films, Caproni has revealed himself as one of the wryest talents of current gay cinema.

 

Los Angeles, December 2, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).

   

Christopher Grigat | Confessions / 2014

i’m writing a letter to daddy

by Douglas Messerli

 

Christopher Grigat (screenwriter and director) Confessions / 2014 [6 minutes]

 

Confessions is one of those films, again without dialogue, that is supposed to help young people come to terms with their sexuality.

    But here everything is so superficial that I can’t imagine what this young man (Tom Raczko) is even feeling, let alone how his friendship with another young boy came about, how they fell actually met, fell in love, and what they felt. All I know is that, from their smiles they enjoyed and had tender and fulfilling sex—maybe, but we can’t even be sure of that.

    In an event, it has somehow magically liberated our young frowning friend enough that he is moved to sit down and pen a letter to his Papa, presumably the confessions of the title.

    His father reads it and appears to slightly smile, although again we can’t be sure of that. But at least he doesn’t moan, groan, grab his heart, or speed out of the house with gun in hand. He appears

to have received the information, the “confession,” rather well. But is that the same as coming out?

    In the end I have no idea to whom such a short work intends to address or for that matter, even why. If perhaps it could truly express what it appears to have on its mind—it’s okay to be gay—there are certainly far better ways to say it, and there have been numerous far better films that actually done so.

    Such a sonorous score, this by David van Son, should be save for something far more momentous than what, at this point in time, might have been simply expressed around the breakfast table. I know it’s still difficult for so many young boys to face their sexuality and dangerous for them to tell others, but really this fat German pappa looks like he deserves and would be open to far more than a handwritten admission, as if the boy had committed some horrible crime which he now needed to admit.

    This is the kind of film that makes coming out all work and no play, with the fearful presumption of anger instead of joy. If I remember correctly, when I told my parents that I was gay, even if they didn’t take it well, it was out of the joy of my having found someone I loved that led to want to share the news with them. Even if they weren’t happy, I was. I wasn’t confessing, I was sharing the pleasure of coming to know how to love.

 

Los Angeles, December 2, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).

Danica Kleinknecht and Conan Gray | Caramel / 2025 [music video]

sweet tooth

by Douglas Messerli

 

Daniel Nigro and Conan Gray (composers), Danica Kleinknecht (director) Caramel / 2025 [4 minutes] [music video]

 

In some senses, the third of Conan Gray’s 2025 music videos from his album Wishbone, Caramel which premiered in August, was the consummate summation of his gay interaction with the characters established by his friend Corey Fogelmanis and him.

    Once again, Corey plays the mean boy who lies to and cheats on the far more passive lover played by Conan. You might even say that Corey represents in this “Brando” characterization all the beautiful bad boys of the working class (in this video he works as a supermarket check-out clerk who lives in a trailer), boys who didn’t always play according to gender rules and often didn’t care who they might hurt in their love.

    Even though this bad boy has terribly hurt Gray’s persona he can’t stop loving him, remembering his kisses like the sweet taste of caramel. And in this case there seems to have been a least a couple of times where his lover has left him only to return, each time finding ready acceptance only because of the sweet memory of their love.

 

Well, in the moment

You weren’t all that kind

You with your wide-eyed grin’s all I can see

When I think of that time

 

Promises spoken

All coming back as lies

But you with your soft, sweet kiss is all I miss

In the back of my mind

Did me wrong in the past

And I know it was bad

But you burn inside my memory so well

You caramel

You’re caramel

…..

 

Ooh

I heard you’re in town

I want you back now

Come over to my house

There’s space on my couch

 

Yeah, you burn inside my memory so well

You caramel

You’re caramel

 

     In his trilogy of videos, This Song, Vodka Cranberry, and Caramel, Gray captures almost a kind of lost 1950s early 1960s sense of small town America, where gay love hovers just below the awareness of its citizens, breaking the hearts of those who dare challenge the community’s sense of normalcy. But, of course, on a larger scale, this is the condition of a great many sexual relationships of young people, straight and gay, who aren’t ready to and haven’t the yet the ability to establish a long linear relationship with others.

     In an interview with Billboard magazine, Gray described his overall album title Wishbone as being a metaphor for the entire process of wishful relationships which most often result in breakups. We now have to presume that for Conan at least some of these were gay.

 

Los Angeles, December 2, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (December 2025).