Film Review
Jean Genet's inspired and totally unique visual poem
evoking homosexual desire and existentialist
suffering has achieved the status of an icon of gay cinema, although it is only quite
recently that the film has succeeded in reaching a wide audience. After its initial
screening in 1950, the film was immediately banned in France and the only copies remained
in the hands of wealthy gay intellectuals for well over a decade. Attempts to screen
the film in America in the 1960s resulted in arrests, near-prosecutions and finally an
outright ban. Fifty years after its near still-birth, the film was finally judged
to be acceptable for public screenings, although in many cases some of the film's more
controversial scenes were cut. Genet himself disliked the film (a loose adaptation of his existential novel
The Miracle of the Rose)
and, in later life, disowned it.
Despite its chequered history and reputation as pornography for the gay intelligentsia,
Un chant d'amour is arguably Genet's most evocative
and haunting work. His only film, it is easily on a par with his celebrated literary
works, such as Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs and Querelle de Brest. With the mocking
surrealism of Luis Buñuel and dark poetry of Jean Cocteau, it is as much a condemnation
of middle class values (particularly contemporary society's harsh attitudes towards homosexuality)
as it is a celebration of sexual desire and a reflection of Genet's grim existentialist
outlook. Few, if any, subsequent films with a gay theme have been anywhere near
as successful at conveying the essence of same-sex attraction and the brutality of a world
that regards such a thing as unnatural and immoral. The film depicts homophobia
with uncompromising brutality, through the sadistic prison warder, an obvious metaphor
for a society that is both titilated and repulsed by the idea of homosexual acts.
This is a short film (the total runtime is just 26 minutes), made in black and white,
with no soundtrack. Stylistically, the film is nearer to the experimental films
of the 1930s - such as Cocteau's
Le Sang d'un poète or Man Ray's
surrealist shorts - than anything else produced in 1950. The cinematography
is crude, some might say primitive, but it could hardly be more effective. Genet
is clearly able to draw on his own experiences in prison to bring a sense of raw authenticity
to what we see. Small wonder that Genet was a hero of the existentialists
- his film conveys the bleakness of a existence in a godless universe with painful believability.
As the prisoners languish in their solitary cells, yearning for the merest form of human
contact to reaffirm their existence, we cannot help but share a fragment of the existentialist
nightmare that was Genet's own troubled life, a life marred by rejection, depression and
self-doubt.
Anyone with a wider appreciation of Genet's work will see that
Un
chant d'amour is less a film about homosexuality or voyeurism, but much more one
about the torment of living in an empty loveless universe, a bleak kind of humanism that
makes it surprisingly relevant to a 21st century audience. Whilst it may have a
reputation for being one of the most notorious pieces of gay erotica, it is also probably
the most effective fusion of existentialist philosophy and cinema.
© James Travers 2005
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In a French prison, two inmates in solitary cells try to communicate with one another.
One is young, clean and handsome; the other somewhat older, unshaved and unkempt.
Both are in dire need of human attention to break their eternal solitude. The closest
they come to physical contact is sharing the smoke from a cigarette through a small hole
in the wall that separates them. Neither realises that their bizarre ritual is being
watched by another man - the prison warder. This seemingly incorruptible figure
of authority is drawn to spy on his prisoners. He is disgusted by what he sees through
the spy hole in each door - men arousing themselves sexually - yet he is unable to avert
his gaze...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.