When you look back towards the end of the festival, you are struck by the abundance of queer affairs and relationships on the screen. At the start, there were more lesbian storylines; in the last few days, the focus has been on male protagonists. One might think that the days of heterosexual cinema are numbered. In “La bola negra” (The Black Ball), the film by the duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the world appears to be populated only by gay men. In their second feature film, the directors paint a broad panorama of Spanish history, set across three time periods, with all the protagonists being male homosexuals.
Sebastián (singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente) is one of the few to survive an Italian air raid in 1937, during which his village is ‘accidentally’ attacked. He is recruited by Franco’s troops to fight for the ‘national’ side and is assigned to guard a wounded Republican prisoner. As it turns out, Rafael (Miguel Bernardeau) was Federico García Lorca’s last lover, who entrusted him with an unpublished manuscript. The second time period, set in 1932, illustrates Lorca’s story. Carlos tries in vain to become a member of the exclusive Casino de Granada, as he is suspected of being homosexual. The third timeline takes place in 2017, when Alberto (Carlos González) receives news that his late grandfather, whom he never knew, has named him as his heir. Here, the circle closes with Lorca’s manuscript.
The film gets off to a promising start, but increasingly loses its way in a maze of melodramatic twists and narrative subplots. Take, for example, the scene where Penélope Cruz performs at a cabaret show organised to entertain Franco’s soldiers. At the evening premiere, she made another appearance, this time as a star on the red carpet. One could speak of a historical extension of Pedro Almodóvar’s Spanish queer cinema, albeit without the sophisticated interior design. It comes as no surprise, then, that Almodóvar is credited as a co-producer.
Four years ago, Belgian director Lukas Dhont won the Grand Prix du Jury for ‘Close', a story of two boys who come under suspicion of possibly being gay. ‘Close’ impressed audiences with its young amateur actors and understated direction. In his new film, ‘Coward’, Dhont has once again cast an amateur actor in the role of Pierre. The film is set during the First World War, which provides the backdrop for a gay love story between two Belgian soldiers. Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia) is a shy recruit from the countryside, while Francis (Valentin Campagne) is the extroverted son of a distinguished gentleman's tailor from the city.
An erotic tension builds between the two, which develops into a passionate affair when they both perform in a drag show organised by Francis behind the front lines. “I wanted to make a film about singing in dark times. I wanted to show camaraderie, how we can be there for one another,” says the writer and director in an interview. Pierre is initially reluctant to embark on the affair with Francis, yet in the end it is he who suggests they flee together after the war to leave the constraints of bourgeois life behind.
The more extensively the drag revue’s setting is depicted, the more the reality of war fades from view. One gets the impression that it serves primarily as a catalyst for telling the story of the two soldiers’ gay relationship. This is not much different from heterosexual love stories set against the backdrop of war, as we have often seen in the cinema.
Both melodramas are certainly likely to have a good chance of winning the so-called Queer Palm.
The same applies to ‘The Man I Love’ (the title quotes a song by George Gershwin), Ira Sachs’ portrait of the gay community in 1980s New York. Rami Malek, who rose to fame playing Freddie Mercury in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, plays Jimmy Scott, a gay actor and singer, with wild facial expressions. Rebecca Hall plays his sister; there is the obligatory visit to their parents and a musical number in their honour. Due to his advanced AIDS, Jimmy is no longer able to see through his performance in an Off-Broadway play. This brings the film to its tragic conclusion.
We’ve seen it all before, more than once – first in René Scott’s ‘Longtime Companion’ (1987), on which Ira Sachs worked as an assistant director. The play within the film comes across as decidedly banal, Rami Malek’s singing performances lack any real spark, and even his gay affair with his English neighbour (Luther Ford) is somewhat predictable. Nevertheless, “The Man I Love” was received positively, and not just by American critics.
There used to be special festivals for queer cinema; now such films have made it into the mainstream.