Little White Lies : (reposted from June 2011)

I assume that many of us have all experienced what might be regarded as an inappropriate or undesirable attraction to another; generally regarded as such because it doesn’t fall neatly within predetermined societal expectations Vincent (Benoît Magimel) experiences such an attraction when he discovers after many years of being in a bonded male relationship with his friend Max (François Cluzet) that not only does he love Max’s hands, but he is in love with him. It’s made quite clear in the film Little White Lies (Guillaume Canot, 2010) that both men are in heterosexual relationships and although Vincent appears comfortable with acknowledging that there is a deeper connection between them, one that might even present itself sexually, Max finds the homosexual tendencies of his friend unbearable and disturbing. The revelation threatens his psychology in a most profound way causing an underlying tension for a two week period when he and a group of his friends holiday together after one of their closest friends was involved in a motorcycle accident. Although I felt troubled by the fact that this group was willing to go on a holiday together, leaving their friend in intensive care, without their assurance or support, I was very much drawn to Vincent who put his emotions on the line by revealing to Max his true feelings, and was sympathetic when Max, fearing that any intimate contact, no matter how brief or superficial with Vincent, might jeopardize his own stable heterosexual identity, rejects Vincent at every turn. Even though attraction, love or a possible sexual liaison between friends and past lovers is a thread that runs throughout this film, it is also about the lies we tell to ourselves and others in order to conceal and protect our emotions and the fragile feelings of others. Little White Lies is listed as a comedy, but I found that the dramatic elements certainly outweighed any humor and I would highly recommend it. See also my film review of A Single Man.

Little White lies

I assume that many of us have all experienced what might be regarded as an inappropriate or undesirable attraction to another; generally regarded as such because it doesn’t fall neatly within preordained expectations of ourselves in society. Vincent (Benoît Magimel) experiences such an attraction, when he discovers after many years of being in a bonded male relationship with his friend Max (François Cluzet) that not only does he love Max’s hands, but he is in love with him. It’s made quite clear in the film Little White Lies (Guillaume Canot, 2010) that both men are in heterosexual relationships and although Vincent appears comfortable with acknowledging that there is a deeper connection between them, one that might even present itself sexually, Max finds the homosexual tendencies of his friend unbearable and disturbing. The revelation threatens his psychology in a most profound way causing an underlying tension for a two week period when he and a group of his friends holiday together after one of their closest friends was involved in a motorcycle accident. Although I felt troubled by the fact that this group was willing to go on a holiday together, leaving their friend in intensive care, without their assurance or support, I was very much drawn to Vincent who put his emotions on the line by revealing to Max his true feelings, and was sympathetic when Max, fearing that any intimate contact, no matter how brief or superficial with Vincent, might jeopardize his own stable heterosexual identity, rejects Vincent at every turn. Even though attraction, love or a possible sexual liaison between friends and past lovers is a thread that runs throughout this film, it is also about the lies we tell to ourselves and others in order to conceal and protect our emotions and the fragile feelings of others. Little White Lies is listed as a comedy, but I found that the dramatic elements certainly outweighed any humor and I would highly recommend it.

A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009) - It's all about the eyes...

It's all about the eyes. So many of the scenes from Tom Ford's A Single Man (2009) centers on the organs of sight. In one of the early scenes, George Falconer (Colin Firth) lays down in the snow next to his dead lover Jim (Matthew Goodeand) and looks into his pale glazed over eyes. In a flashback scene of his first encounter with Jim, emphasis is placed on eye contact and non-verbal communication. Consequent scenes include a sensual visual exchange with his student Kenny Potter (Nicholas Hoult), who wears a soft, white mohair jumper, and another with Carlos (Jon Kortajarena) a Spanish male prostitute who lights his cigarette and looks vaguely like James Dean. Ford doesn't only use eye to eye contact between George and other males he encounters, there is also a close-up scene of the eyes and lips of one of his female students, who for all purposes resembles the iconic 60s film-star and sex-goddess, Brigit Bardot. George parks his car in front of a large billboard of the frightened eyes of Janet Leigh (Marion Crane) from the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho (1960) and in another scene he encounters the beautiful eyes of his neighbours daughter. Of course, there is that very telling scene, which tells of things reflected back to us, very early on, in which he looks at himself in the mirror whilst dressing and tells himself to 'just get through the day'.

The emphasis on eyes in this film is not only that they convey so much feeling, that they insist that we see the world through the eyes of George who has lost his lover in a car accident and is experiencing loss and grief, but that in our looking at all this beauty (the film is exquisitely beautiful and why wouldn't it be, it was directed by Tom Ford, a former designer for the Gucci fashion house) we are asked to see beyond the pain and sorrow of George's planned suicide, beyond the chaos that is happening in the world in 1962, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fact that at that time gay people remained invisible for fear that they would be stigmatised and loose their jobs, to the beauty that surrounds him. And there are so many beautiful scenes, which reference a time that was going through so many political, social and economic upheavals.

What is amazing about this film that amidst all this beauty and order - George is depicted as being an obsessive compulsive, all his clothing, utensils and other possessions are neatly placed in correct order and he has even laid out clothing that he wants to be buried in (including instructions that his tie must be made with a Windsor knot), along with his will, insurance papers and keys on his table; George is experiencing so much inner turmoil. Indeed, the many scenes of him floating in water suggest that he is literally drowning in sorrow.

Ford's ability to create designer fashion has worked well for him here, for he has crafted a film that uses the very fact that we love to look, to insist that we look deeper into this film, to try and understand that love has more to do with sensuality rather than just sexuality (there is no depiction of any obvious sexual act in the film) and that no matter how much we think we are in control that this is just as much as an illusion as the masks created by fashion, clothing and human behavior.