An amazing film by the violence it contains. It is both realistic and frightening.
Gay people, young and old, are forced to live a clandestine life with an underground satisfaction of their desires or impulses. They have against them three types of people. The parents, in this case essentially a mother, who cannot understand that at age 14 her son can have some desires and can try to get them satisfied. She is a bigot. If he would look for girls she would just be satisfied but not for boys, what's more men.
The second type of enemies are gangs of gay hunters or in fact hunters of anything that is different and one of their victims is a gay waiter who is just walking home through a common park. He will be beaten to death. Another one is an Asian young teenager who is playing the violin and preparing for some Royal Academy of Music. We only see at the end the smashed violin in some underpass.
The third type of enemies is more vicious because it does not even have the excuse of gang rule. It is purely individualistic isolated gay-bashers who go around, let one flirt with them and then trap him in a way or another and smash him to death. The film has one moment of extremely morbid humor here since one of these predators meet with another of these predators and one will end up in hospital.
Gay men seem to have one more enemy which is among themselves this time. It is unfaithfulness. One couple gets their civil partnership celebrated and while everyone is having fun, the older groom flirts with the waiter in the pantry in the basement of the house. Pretty ugly for that predator of another type, a predator who only has one objective: have his way with as many gay men as possible while his civil union gives him some kind of cover up for his feline treacherous behavior.
That is sordid, bleak, and even morbid in a way. And yet there may be some hope in all that darkness. The hope of maybe some might start feeling differently about it, feeling that all men have the same right to love those they want and want to be loved and to love back. The hope that one closeted gay man might do the right thing and help the police catch the killers who took the life of the waiter. And eventually the second groom of the "married" couple coming across the ring he gave his partner on the finger of one of the solitary gay-bashers who got beaten up by the other solitary gay-basher understands that his own partner has given his ring to someone and this ring ended up on the finger of someone who was not at the wedding ceremony or celebration. The police will sort out the rest. That's the hope, but wrapped up in so much muck.
The film is supposed to be based on true facts and to have been shot to help develop a debate in our societies. It sure brings up many questions and no easy answer because you can change the law, you can change the police, you can change courts and judges, but to change the mentality and minds of bigots and hunters hunting human preys for the fun of catching, torturing and then killing those who are dressed to kill in a way and yet are killed by those who are just by-standers who should have let life live the way it wanted to be lived.
Such crimes might finally get down in number and gravity when everyone will have the same rights and the law gives everyone the same dignity and freedom. But it will be long and difficult. Bigotry is alas very well and widely spread and we have not invented yet the bigotry-collecting trucks and machines to get it to the closest bigotry dump.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Gay people, young and old, are forced to live a clandestine life with an underground satisfaction of their desires or impulses. They have against them three types of people. The parents, in this case essentially a mother, who cannot understand that at age 14 her son can have some desires and can try to get them satisfied. She is a bigot. If he would look for girls she would just be satisfied but not for boys, what's more men.
The second type of enemies are gangs of gay hunters or in fact hunters of anything that is different and one of their victims is a gay waiter who is just walking home through a common park. He will be beaten to death. Another one is an Asian young teenager who is playing the violin and preparing for some Royal Academy of Music. We only see at the end the smashed violin in some underpass.
The third type of enemies is more vicious because it does not even have the excuse of gang rule. It is purely individualistic isolated gay-bashers who go around, let one flirt with them and then trap him in a way or another and smash him to death. The film has one moment of extremely morbid humor here since one of these predators meet with another of these predators and one will end up in hospital.
Gay men seem to have one more enemy which is among themselves this time. It is unfaithfulness. One couple gets their civil partnership celebrated and while everyone is having fun, the older groom flirts with the waiter in the pantry in the basement of the house. Pretty ugly for that predator of another type, a predator who only has one objective: have his way with as many gay men as possible while his civil union gives him some kind of cover up for his feline treacherous behavior.
That is sordid, bleak, and even morbid in a way. And yet there may be some hope in all that darkness. The hope of maybe some might start feeling differently about it, feeling that all men have the same right to love those they want and want to be loved and to love back. The hope that one closeted gay man might do the right thing and help the police catch the killers who took the life of the waiter. And eventually the second groom of the "married" couple coming across the ring he gave his partner on the finger of one of the solitary gay-bashers who got beaten up by the other solitary gay-basher understands that his own partner has given his ring to someone and this ring ended up on the finger of someone who was not at the wedding ceremony or celebration. The police will sort out the rest. That's the hope, but wrapped up in so much muck.
The film is supposed to be based on true facts and to have been shot to help develop a debate in our societies. It sure brings up many questions and no easy answer because you can change the law, you can change the police, you can change courts and judges, but to change the mentality and minds of bigots and hunters hunting human preys for the fun of catching, torturing and then killing those who are dressed to kill in a way and yet are killed by those who are just by-standers who should have let life live the way it wanted to be lived.
Such crimes might finally get down in number and gravity when everyone will have the same rights and the law gives everyone the same dignity and freedom. But it will be long and difficult. Bigotry is alas very well and widely spread and we have not invented yet the bigotry-collecting trucks and machines to get it to the closest bigotry dump.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU