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I've now watched it 1-1/2 times (hope to finish the last half of my second viewing today), so I think I've sorted through most of my thoughts and feelings about the movie.
What follows is probably less a cohesive narrative than stream-of-consciousness observations. I will try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but I can't completely promise to big reveal-free. So caveat lector and all that.
* * *
First, a little about the film: Beauty is the story of François van Heerden (Deon Lotz), a fairly well-off Afrikaner businessman (he owns a lumberyard/sawmill in Bloemfontein), married with adult children, who, we come to realize, leads a secret life: He likes having sex with other men. You could say he is a closeted gay man, but he is strongly anti-gay (and racist as well). Of course, that doesn't mean he's not gay, but he doesn't acknowledge that he is. In fact, he's quite adamant in his anti-moffie (Afrikaans for "faggot") proclamations.
Which, again, doesn't mean he's not gay. In fact, it probably means he knows the truth about himself, somewhere deep down, but is determined to keep it hidden and repressed.
At the wedding of one of his daughters, he's meets up with the adult son of an old friend. Christian Roodt (Charlie Keegan) is everything François is not--young, handsome, professional (he's finishing up law studies but also does modeling and commercials), single, with an easy, relaxed charm and an ability to be comfortable with all sexes, races, and (maybe even?) sexualities.
François quickly becomes obsessed with Christian, reading clues and misreading cues. Christian shows an interest in François, but . . . is François interpreting that interest correctly?
Anyway, that's enough of the plot for now. Nothing you couldn't find in any other review. On to the observations.
* * *
Is Christian gay? Bi? Curious? Or just a very accepting straight man? I can't decide. I think we are supposed to be as intrigued and confounded as François, noting Christian's interest in him, but also noting Christian's interest in François's daughter, as well as his male and female friends at university.
Christian's whole vibe is non-commital, but not in a cold, detached way. He is free-wheeling, easy-going, genuine (or at least superficially so) with everyone. He is young. He doesn't have to adhere to any one tribe or lifestyle. He's both a lawyer and a part-time model--professional and casual, intellectual and facile. He does stress to François that he's serious about law, but he's also into iPods (or at least begging his parents for a new one), beaches, and socializing at school. Maybe he's not "serious" in the bourgeois sense, but he is having fun and is more well-rounded of a human being, certainly more than his father, than François, and his "elders," who seem to associate only with others like them and only deal with money, work, and responsibilities.
There is one scene on the beach at Clifton (where "young people go to pose," as Christian's father puts it) in which we see Christian turn away from his female companion to look at someone intently off camera. Is it a man or a woman? We do not know, we never know. We can only speculate.
Same way at university. Christian is friendly with everyone but hugs a coloured male friend and even kisses him on the cheek. Again, is this proof that he is gay? François might think so (and this perhaps sets him further on his way, despite his "no moffies" policy), but maybe Christian is just a modern metrosexual man, expressing his affection for a friend in a non-traditional, non-stereotypical way. And if all you've ever known is a hyper-masculine culture--where brutality is strength and love and emotion are weaknesses--this may be the conclusion you draw, that Christian is more receptive to François's interest and attentions for the reason that François is offering them to him.
It's hard to envision François ever having been young, happy, or care-free. François is supposed to be in his 40s, married, with two adult daughters. He more than likely came of age during a rough-and-tumble time, the end of Apartheid/the beginning of majority government. He played it safe, going with the family plan and a solid, if uninspiring, business, turning wild nature into building blocks for houses, fitting round pegs into square holes.
Perhaps he felt he had to play it safe, that he had no other options, and couldn't see a way to step outside tribal expectations to be his own man and to be happy. Perhaps he just never really thought about it.
I've met guys like François, ones who didn't realize until much later in life that they might be gay, who still don't, into their 40s, 50s, and 60s, who are married with adult children and yet like to have sex with men. But who are not gay--or rather, don't see themselves ever living a "gay lifestyle." Maybe they kiss during sex with a guy, but just as likely they don't. Maybe they are the "receptive" partner during sex or maybe they're always on top. Maybe they enjoy sex with other men, or maybe they just consider it a function, an impulse, a compulsion, without really ever getting at the underlying need they're trying to fill. Gay bar? No way. Gay marriage? Hell no! Man-on-man sex at a rest stop or secured in an online chat room? Well, don't mind if I do . . .
And I've just as likely seen men who identified as gay who acted pretty much the same way. Gay in name only but still massively uncomfortable with the social stigma of homosexuality and their own innate desires.
* * *
Beauty is a slow film, and I can't decide whether this is good or bad. The pacing is that of an art film but also of some non-Western films I've seen. I don't know whether that's intentional or not. Is it a stylistic intention (or pretension?) or the sign of a filmmaker finding his way? I don't know. Beauty is, I believe, only the second film by Oliver Hermanus, a young South African director and writer. I'm intrigued to see his first film, Shirley Adams, the story of a mother in the Cape Flats section of Cape Town who struggles, financially and emotionally, to care for her disabled son.
What was a pleasant surprise for me was to learn that Hermanus is "coloured" or of mixed ethnicity. It surprised me because Beauty is such a "white" film. By that I mean that it delves deeply into this very narrow, privileged, exclusive world of Afrikaners of a certain age and class. At least from my non-South African vantage, it would seem that the director, a "coloured outsider," offers an exceptionally detailed portrait of this world, its privileges, its prejudices, the stories it likes to tell itself, and the ugly reality behind some of those stories.
A case in point--and one I wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't read some reviews of the movie from South African news websites: A significant scene takes place at an Afrikaner farm. And that scene is a "gay" orgy (or rather an orgy featuring men who have sex with men--but who don't associate with "moffies" or "coloureds"). It is, shall we say, highly detailed. If you've ever been to an orgy or a sex club (and I'm not naming names), then the scene is extremely, even uncomfortably evocative of what goes on, from the sounds of sex (flesh slapping against flesh) to the air of tension among those who are waiting anxiously for something to happen and to find out if they will get what they so desperately need from the experience.
So accolades to the writer, director, and all the actors for conveying that mood so well. But there's more to the story--this is an Afrikaner farm in the Free State: It apparently doesn't get much more Afrikaner than that. The romance of the farm, a yearning for a pastoral way of life, pre-majority government and perhaps even pre-Apartheid, being a recurring theme in Afrikaner culture--at least as evidenced by my sampling of media and news stories. Imagine an American movie that did the same, that took the perfect Little House on the Prairie mise-en-scène and upended it with a gay orgy or a meth lab (or both an orgy and a meth lab). That, I suspect, is what makes the scene even more culturally charged for South Africans and not something a casual viewer would glean without some guidance.
There are other moments like this--the wedding, the family dinners--that are exclusively white and painstakingly detailed, so much so that I assumed Hermanus was white, not coloured. Some of the media I've seen and read make it look as though South Africa is a far more white country than it is. According to current statistics available from Wikipedia, the South African population is roughly 79 percent black and 21 percent "other," including 9 percent white, 9 percent coloured, and 2.5 percent Indian/Asian. And yet commercials, magazines, newspapers, music, movies, and TV--at least the examples I'm exposed to (or looking toward)--are overwhelmingly white.
But it's also some of my own prejudice at work--being surprised that a "coloured" writer and director could so adeptly portray this white world. Being surprised that there is such a thing as a coloured writer and director from South Africa in the first place.
Shame, shame, shame on me. Next thing I'll learn is that Hermanus isn't even gay, despite looking good in a tank top and so accurately conveying a certain realm of man-on-man sex.
* * *
Rate this film. HuluPlus asked me to. Did I think it was OK or did I like it?
It is a hard film to "like" or to recommend because it isn't a happy picture or an easy one to view. It's slow with lots of vaguely intended scenes and tense, repressed, non-showy acting by the lead, Deon Lotz. Not much happens and then what does happen is horrible.
Like Shame (with Michael Fassbender), to which I've seen Beauty compared, it's a challenging movie to watch, one more noteworthy for its performances and character studies than for its plotting. Shame seems like an action thriller (Die Hard On, perhaps?) in comparison to Beauty's pacing and subtle storytelling.
I didn't particularly like Shame, truth be told, even though I kept being told I should and why I was wrong not to. It's intriguing, and it doesn't spell everything out for you (Beauty does even less so), but it's hard to work up a lot of emotion over someone who is so unsympathetic--and this applies equally to Brandon in Shame and François in Beauty. François's behavior is more egregious, far less appealing than Brandon, who seems more like a victim of his own compulsions and history than François.
Perhaps.
Fassbender is certainly very attractive and looks good naked, a real specimen of modern Rand-ian manhood. There's a prurient interest in watching him do sex, although the sex is ultimately unappealing and unfulfilling. One review in the New York Times mentioned a subtle (or not) moralizing tone to Shame, and I think there's some truth to that. Brandon is another facet of the modern man, the single loner/loser who, along with his very married boss, seeks to prove his superiority through sexual one-upmanship. He's rudderless and foundering in a cold, sterile world chiefly of his own making. He's capitalism. He's America.
There's one scene near the end that to me (and the New York Times reviewer) underscores the morality at work in the storyline. I won't give it away completely, but it reminded me of that scene in American Gigolo where Richard Gere's character, in order to save himself, finally gives in and says he'll even do "fag tricks."
Poor baby. How awful for you, a man who gets paid to have sex with old broads to get paid to have sex with old geezers! The moment in Shame and in American Gigolo are not literally identical, but it's kind of the same subtext: I'm broken, I'm at my wit's end, I'll stoop to do something that I normally wouldn't do, that's even more abhorrent to me and the world at large. I'll have sex with another man! Yes, I've fallen that far.
Well, fuck that, fig and lit.
Lotz looks more like the rest of us, hairy and pudgy, and is less obvious in his motivations and intents. At the end, you'd like to think he could have turned back, found another way to deal with his feelings and frustration. You don't necessarily see him as a victim of his circumstances or particularly tortured by what he's wrought. Not because he isn't in some indirect way. It's just that he's so repressed and expressionless that he doesn't fathom what he's done or can't feel what he wants. In some ways, this makes him monstrous. In other ways, it makes you feel for him ever so slightly, although you can't forget, you don't forgive.
Beauty actually reminded me of a different picture, the Australian film, Head On, which details the story of a young, gorgeous Greek-Aussie guy (played by Alex Dimitriades), repressed in his emotions and confused in his sexuality, yet who aggressively goes after back alley sex with any willing guy, no matter how unsavory. He eventually has an epiphany about what he wants, who he is--but it doesn't play out the way you'd like to think it will. This ain't no Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss.
Nor is Beauty. And yet Head On has stayed with me over the years, even though it, too, is a difficult film to recommend to others because of its darkness and unhappiness. I suspect Beauty will stay with me as well.
So if you're looking for a "gay" movie to warm the cockles of your heart--or the cockles found in any other region of your body--this is not the one.
But if you want to be challenged, intellectually and emotionally, want to experience another culture, another mindset, then, yes, walk this way. Go see this film. But prepared to be unsettled by it--and yet still feel the need to see it again. And perhaps again as well.
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