I doubled over with laughter upon reading young director Sebastien
Lifshitz's assertion in the press notes to his Cinemas en France
entry "Les Corps Ouverts" (Open Bodies) that "homosexuality is not
often represented in French cinema...". If depictions of gay behavior
in movies were once as scarce as public approval of gays and
lesbians, I think it's safe to say the drought is over. In fact, a
space alien forced to bone up on human sexual proclivities using only
this year's Cannes line-up, couldn't be blamed for concluding that
homosexuality is the societal norm and heterosexual coupling the
exception.
Here, off the top of my head, are a few observations about the
characters in the films (French and otherwise) I've seen at Cannes
this year.
"Ceux qui m'aient prendront le train" (Those Who Love Me Can Take The
Train)
The characters en route to the funeral of Jean-Baptiste, a minor
painter who fascinated men and women alike but sure did like to "eat
ass" (as the subtitles so concisely put it), include a gay art critic
whose lover, since boarding the train, has fallen madly in love with
a scrawny teenage boy with whom he'll have furtive semi-sex in the
train's toilet. After the funeral, we get to know a flighty woman
named Viviane, played by none-other-than Vincent Perez ("The Crow"
sequel, "Swept from the Sea") in a borderline risible but ultimately
touching and moving turn. Patrice Chereau ('Queen Margot') loves to
send the camera swooping and probing and obviously thinks there's no
such thing as too many longing glances between male protagonists.
(Competition)
"L'Arriere Pays" (The Hinterland)
Jacques, a 50-ish actor based in Paris, returns to his podunk town in
Southwest France for his mother's funeral. Jacques left town at age
16 since the brutish locals razzed him for being too effeminate.
Jacques (played by screenwriter-director Jacques Nolot, who also
penned Andre Techine's "I Don't Kiss" - which told of a young man who
arrives in Paris and becomes a male prostitute) takes a nap and
dreams about adolescent male crotches and supple adult male crotches
on a soccer field and in a bull fighting ring, respectively. Nolot's
first feature does a terrific job of portraying the brutish locals,
whose ordinary small-mindedness is terrifyingly authentic. You get
the distinct impression that, lurking beneath cookie-cutter
pleasantries, is an atavistic urge to beat Jacques to death with
clubs. The washing and dressing of his mom's corpse is also something
one doesn't often see on film. (Cinemas en France)
"Les Corps Ouverts" (Open Bodies)
Eighteen-year-old Remi answers an ad at school for a movie audition
and ends up "auditioning" his anal passageway for the casting
director. Although the film (which won the prestigeous Prix Jean
Vigo) only lasts 45 minutes, sweet confused Remi also has a sexual
encounter in a sex shop backroom with another young man (played, with
casual sympathy, by the film's real director, Sebastien Lifshitz) and
also fits in a roll in the hay with an attractive young woman, after
which he says "I didn't think I liked girls." "Yeah," says the young
lady "Girls can be a real pain in the ass." "That's not what I
meant," says Remi. "What did you mean?" asks the girl. She never gets
an answer. (Cinemas en France)
"Sitcom"
In the wacky French film "Sitcom," a bourgeois family abruptly
experiences the joys of S & M, orgies and incest after dad brings
home a pet rat. The first family member to be transformed by contact
with the rat is the quiet nerdy son, who announces he's gay and
changes his major from pre-law to shopping for Jean-Paul Gaultier
duds. The Spanish maid's African husband also shows an avid interest
in male flesh. Francois Ozon's first full-fledged feature doesn't
sustain the mastery he showed in "A Summer Dress" (25 minutes) and
the supremely creepy "See the Sea" (52 minutes), but this young man's
dripping with talent. (International Critics Week)
"L'Ecole de la chair" (The School of Flesh)
In Benoit Jacquot's "L'ecole de la chair," adapted from a novel by
Yukio Mishima, a middle-aged woman (Isabelle Huppert) falls hard for
a handsome 20-year-old boy (toothsome newcomer Vincent Martinez) who
bartends in a gay bar and is happy to sleep with either sex for
money. Their class differences end up being more of an obstacle to
happiness than the age difference. In her struggle to hold on to the
young stud, the woman enlists the help of the bar's host-cum-hostess,
played by Vincent Lindon, in a woman's wig and feminine garb and
accesories. A rock solid French film for grown-ups with few surprises
but plenty of well-observed human behavior. (Competition)
Those are just a few examples from Gaul. On to other fine
nations.
From Australia:
Ana Kokkinos's "Head On" could have been called 'A Wog on the Wild
Side.' Adapted with only moderate flair from the novel "Loaded" by
Christos Tsiolkas, "Head On" follows the disolute adventures of Ari,
an Australian of Greek heritage whose family expects him to study,
marry, work hard and be respectable. Ari just wants to have hot,
furtive sex with other men. Which he proceeds to do on screen. Ari's
friend Johnny wears a dress, which does nothing to improve their
predicament when the two men are hauled into a police station and
beaten. It's hard to believe so much sex, violence and rebellion can
be so tedious, but in this case, it is. (Directors Fortnight)
From Spain:
In "Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley" (Torrente, The Dumb Arm of
the Law), the title's boorish ex-cop (played by writer-director
Santiago Segura) is on a quasi-stakeout with a young man who works in
a fish shop. "How 'bout we jerk each other off?" suggests Torrente.
"Not a fag thing, you understand - just something to pass the time."
This is played for laughs and gets them in a wall-to-wall send-up
that couldn't be crasser or sillier if Beavis and Butt-head had been
script consultants. "Torrente," which opened earlier this year on
it's own turf, is now the biggest Spanish box office success of all
time. (International Critics Week)
From Canada:
In "Last Night," Don McKellar's poignant and funny depiction of the
last six hours before the world ends as experienced by a batch of
characters in Toronto, heterosexual Patrick (writer-director
McKellar) is approached by a good (and also straight) buddy to have a
man-to-man encounter so they won't have to die without having
experienced whatever that experience might bring. "Last Night" packs
a lot of observations about love, sex, desire and devotion into its
compact framework. Sometimes hilarious and almost always touching,
"Last Night" weaves its individual strands into a satisfying whole.
(Directors Fortnight)
From the U.S.A.:
In "The Imposters," a madcap antics-at-sea farce, circa the 1930s,
the champion wrestler played by Billy Connolly takes every
opportunity to extoll the virtues of "firm buttocks" and sweating men
wrestling in the altogether in Greco-Roman splendor. This is played
for laughs and gets them. The film, written and directed by Stanley
Tucci, treads water a litle too often, but is sweetly entertaining at
least half the time. (Un Certain Regard)
In Lisa Cholodenko's outstanding "High Art," 24-year-old Syd (Radha
Mitchell) lives with her boyfriend and works at the glossy
manhattan-based photo magazine "Frame." When her bathroom ceiling
spings a leak she ventures upstairs to the apartment of Lucy Berliner
(Ally Sheedy in a flat-out terrific performance), a wealthy lesbian
and lapsed photographer whose draped-on-the-furniture friends (with
few exceptions) are all lesbians or heroin addicts or both. Syd finds
the atmosphere sductive in every way and is soon opening her nostrils
to heroin and her legs to experimentation. (Directors Fortnight)
Todd Solondz's "Happiness" has at its bittersweet core a father who's
a sensitive, caring dad, whose love for and gift for patiently
guiding his son knows no bounds. Unfortunately, this same fellow - a
shrink by trade - is also terminally attracted to his adolescent
son's male classmates. As Solondz deftly proved in "Welcome to the
Dollhouse," middle class Americans are exotic, emotionally challenged
creatures doing daily battle with feelings and fears that leave giant
asteroids and overgrown Japanese lizards in the dust. (Directors
Fortnight)
Todd Haynes's "Velvet Goldmine" is a treasure trove of polymorphous
perversity, set in the sexually fluid milieu of glam rock. Woody
Allen once cracked that bisexuality doubles your chance of getting a
date on Saturday night. "Velvet Goldmine" plays like one very
protracted, fetchingly designed Saturday night followed by a rude
awakening in a decade that doesn't sparkle nearly as much.
(Competition)
And I haven't had the pleasure of seeing "Love is the Devil," (Un
Certain Regard), from the UK, which depicts the twisted, emotionally
draining relationship between painter Francis Bacon and his berated
young boyfriend.
So, Monsieur Lifshitz's assertion to the contrary, when it comes to
contemporary cinema, in Gaul or elsewhere, the pink traingle hasn't
exactly been sucked up into the Bermuda Triangle.
The Directors Fortnight celebrated its 30th edition this year by
screening Paul Leni's silent classic "The Man Who Laughs" from 1928.
Shown with an outstanding score composed by Canada's Gabril
Thibaudeau (and performed quite sonorously by the Octuor de France),
the film features a trusty canine companion, whom the characters call
from time to time via title cards. His name? "Homo."
Copyright 1994-2008 Film Scouts LLC
Created, produced, and published by Film Scouts LLC
Film Scouts® is a registered trademark of Film Scouts LLC
All rights reserved.
