I feel like the film is too in love with its grimness to convey any clear message to the audience, but I loved how it explored (or foreshadowed) the absurdity of how hypersexualized the gay community is. There’s a scene where Henri and another guy are kissing in public and then Henri says to the guy something along the lines of “you have nice teeth,” and it’s just so bizarre how specific that objectification is. The characters in this are so hypersexualized that they don’t know how to hold non-sexual conversation - Jean’s enigmatic aura just feels like a facade to hide this fact.
This train station is basically a foreshadowing of Grindr. I also love how the world around the characters is vibrant, but the characters are empty and lonely.
Sadly, the film seems just like its characters, empty and unable to give us any non-sexual insight to its characters and world.
The performances are excellent, especially from the lead. The cinematography is nice and really communicates the isolation of the characters, but there’s too many of them (characters) who feel like they represent the same thing, and it doesn’t go bizarre enough (like in an Infinity Pool kinda way) or deep enough to make its length feel justified. Just how crazy and psychotic can Henri go to get what he wants? I needed to see that
I did find it compelling at the start, and there are moments where it feels like the film has more to explore, but it ends up feeling like one-note faux-complexity at the end. I feel like if the runtime were shorter, I wouldn’t have minded. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for something nihilistic.
I feel like the film is too in love with its grimness to convey any clear message to the audience, but I loved how it explored (or foreshadowed) the absurdity of how hypersexualized the gay community is. There’s a scene where Henri and another guy are kissing in public and then Henri says to the guy something along the lines of “you have nice teeth,” and it’s just so bizarre how specific that objectification is. The characters in this are so hypersexualized that they don’t know how to hold non-sexual conversation - Jean’s enigmatic aura just feels like a facade to hide this fact.
This train station is basically a foreshadowing of Grindr. I also love how the world around the characters is vibrant, but the characters are empty and lonely.
Sadly, the film seems just like its characters, empty and unable to give us any non-sexual insight to its characters and world.
The performances are excellent, especially from the lead. The cinematography is nice and really communicates the isolation of the characters, but there’s too many of them (characters) who feel like they represent the same thing, and it doesn’t go bizarre enough (like in an Infinity Pool kinda way) or deep enough to make its length feel justified. Just how crazy and psychotic can Henri go to get what he wants? I needed to see that
I did find it compelling at the start, and there are moments where it feels like the film has more to explore, but it ends up feeling like one-note faux-complexity at the end. I feel like if the runtime were shorter, I wouldn’t have minded. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for something nihilistic.
