English Title: The Summer with CarmenOriginal Title: To kalokairi tis KarmenYear: 2023Genre: ComedyCountry: GreeceLanguage: GreekDirector: Zacharias MavroeidisScreenwriters: Zacharias Mavroeidis, Fondas ChalatsisComposer: Ted RegalesCinematographer: Thodoros MihopoulosEditor: Livia NeroutsopoulouCast:Yorgos TsiantoulasAndreas LabropoulosNikolaos MihasRoubini VasilakopoulouVasilis TsigristarisAria Di VineRating: 7.5/10
English Title: Viet and NamOriginal Title: Trong lòng dat Year: 2024Genre: DramaCountry: Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, France, Netherlands, USA, Italy, GermanyLanguage: VietnameseDirector/Screenwriter: Minh Quy TruongCinematographer: Son DoanEditor: Félix RehmCast:Thanh Hai PhamDuy Bao Dinh DaoThi Nga NguyenViet Tung LeNgan KhanhVan Dat CaoRating: 7.2/10
English Title: The Astronaut LoversOriginal Title: Los amantes astronautasYear: 2024Genre: Comedy, RomanceCountry: Argentina, SpainLanguage: SpanishDirector/Screenwriter/Editor: Marco BergerComposer: Pedro Irusta Cinematographer: Mariano De RosaCast:Javier OránLautaro BettoniAgustín Frías Iván MasliahCamila del CampoMelina FurguielaAilín SalasMora ArenillasRating: 7.6/10
Title: On Swift HorsesYear: 2024Genre: Drama, RomanceCountry: USALanguage: English, SpanishDirector: Daniel MinahanScreenwriter: Bryce Kassbased on the book by Shannon PufahlComposer: Mark OrtonCinematographer: Luc MontpellierEditors: Robert Frazen, Joe Murphy, Kate SanfordCast:Daisy Edgar-JonesJacob ElordiWill PoulterDiego CalvaSasha CalleKat CunningDon SwayzeAndrew Keenan-BolgerJay HuguleyRating: 6.8/10
Looking at the movies coming out in recent years, especially in the international queer cinema-scape, forsooth one can feel like we're watching something interesting unfold. A whole universe of stories is starting to connect and shine brighter than before, possessing a shared aim to excavate some broader human truths, other than those negative feelings of secrecy, shame, guilt that have characterized this particular subcultural genre ever since its nascent years. It's fascinating to see how far queer cinema has evolved, moving beyond earlier narrative tropes to discover so much more. Without further ado, let's take a closer look at four recent films, examining how these four distinct visions, sourced from four different continents, come together to paint a rich, intricate, and wonderfully varied queer presentation on the screen.
From a sun-drenched Greek beach of modern liberality to the Stygian, scuzzy coal mines in a rain-buffeted Vietnam in the noughties, and from a sylvan Argentinian summer houses to the more reserved world of 1950s America, these films certainly display a broad spectrum in what they discuss and how they appear. They delve into the intricacies of desire, the burden of history, how identity can flow and shift, and the firm bonds in both relationships and friendships that don't fit into neat categories. These movies contribute significantly to a wilder conversation about queerness of today; they offer more than just a limited perspective. Each one provides an insightful way to comprehend that universal human need for clarity, authenticity and closure.
Mavroeidis’ THE SUMMER WITH CARMEN (his third feature film) practically sashays onto the screen with all the relaxed vibes of a nude beach on a Greek island, but beneath that astoundingly in-the-raw surface, it’s actually a pretty clever, self-aware enquiry of storytelling itself. This film functions as a story about crafting a potential screen script. The entire process of building a narrative becomes this amusing, often touching, commentary on how messy real life can be. Our main guys, the good-looking, hirsute ("baby gorilla" is an apt term of endearment) and somewhat lost Demos (Tsiantoulas), and his more flamboyant, aspiring director friend Nikitas (Labropoulos), are consistently trying to write a screenplay about Demos’s recent summer - a period marked by a fairly rough breakup and, oddly enough, adopting a stray dog named Carmen.
The film's "film-within-a-film" setup is genuinely absorbing. Mavroeidis frequently leaves little winks, reminding us that we're viewing a constructed tale (temporal differences are effectually signposted by Nikitas' hair color), even as he draws us into the characters' emotions. When Demos and Nikitas argue about plot points or the "hero's journey," they’re definitely wrestling with Demos's own struggle to comprehend his love life. This extra layer elevates what could have been a simple queer rom-com, rendering it more sophisticated and clever. It illustrates how contemporary queer cinema can now playfully bend established genres. The humor often stems from how absorbed in themselves the characters are and how delightfully comical their artistic aspirations can be when they encounter everyday life conundrums.
The authentic, affecting Platonic bond between Tsiantoulas and Labropoulos firmly grounds the film (the latter is exceptional in dissipating any self-consciousness and hokeyness from a seemingly predictable role of an effeminate friend, even upstaging the former in their heart-baring moments). Their "bromance" serves as a central element of the movie, illustrating how enduring and elaborate queer friendships can be, often even surpassing romantic connections. This underscores a development in queer storytelling that highlights diverse relationship dynamics beyond mere romance. The film also features tasteful nudity, presented naturally as part of the beach setting and the characters' lives, feeling quite refreshing and unforced. It’s a helpful reminder that sometimes, the most profound love stories aren't about grand, dramatic gestures; they’re simply about two friends debating a dramaturgical issue on a nudist beach, or a heartfelt connection with a hapless dog. The film's lightheartedness is pleasant (a sideswipe to Greek Weird Wave is my pick for eliciting a spontaneous smile), and it subtly prompts us to question the very narratives we construct for our own lives, establishing it as a distinct queer film.
Shifting continents and moods, THE ASTRONAUT LOVERS turns its attention to an open-faced, care-free scrutiny of male desire. Berger, the Argentine queer pioneer, has certainly built a reputation for delving into those subtle, often unspoken feelings of attraction. His films tend to emphasize lingering glances, charged silences, and the exquisite anguish of unrequited affection, rather than overt declarations. This film, his ninth feature, might be his most accessible, but it’s still quite deep, neatly packaged as a sweet romantic comedy. Berger’s characteristic approach - a patient, almost voyeuristic camera, extended takes, and a skillful use of physical proximity to build attraction or tension - is clearly at play here.
The story follows Pedro (Orán), who's openly gay and visiting his family's summer home in Argentina, and Maxi (Bettoni), his ostensibly heterosexual childhood friend. The whole thing kicks off with a familiar rom-com device: Maxi tells a wild falsehood to his ex-girlfriend, claiming he's now gay and dating Pedro. What ensues is a dance of ambiguity, where the "fake" relationship transforms into a genuine test for very real and confusing sentiments. A compelling aspect of THE ASTRONAUT LOVERS is Berger's complete commitment to that ambiguous space of wanting someone and denying it. He challenges the rigid classifications of sexuality, hinting that attraction is much more fluid and unexpected than we often presume. This viewpoint truly reflects the evolving comprehension of sexuality in our modern world.
The summer house setting, with its relaxed atmosphere and easy intimacy, is ideal for this kind of inquiry. Clothing is shed, inhibitions relax, and the boundaries between "straight" and "gay" tend to blur into an intriguing, hazy mix, heady with laidback, cockteasing raillery (also the opening icebreaker between Pedro and Maxi is the famous Pinocchio paradox), contributing to the film's sensual atmosphere and its banters galore mood setting that can be defined as the cool factor among today's youngsters. The humor often arises from the disarming awkwardness and double entendres (like the titular "astronaut") embedded in their conversations, a clever inversion of typical rom-com banter. Orán and Bettoni complements each other with a nuanced, coruscating spontaneity and alacrity, their mutual tendresse consistently simmer below the surface, often conveyed through minute facial expressions and meaningful silences, with less dependence on direct, explicit talk, which are Orán's forte, who can evince all the minutiae of an unuttered romantic tingling with tip-top finesse.
The film proceeds unhurriedly, opting not to rush in defining their relationship, allowing that "will they, won't they" tension to build with a gradual pace. THE ASTRONAUT LOVERS functions as a superfine specimen of Berger's talent for depicting that delicate, often challenging journey of self-discovery and the tantalizing power of unspoken desire. It’s a finely crafted film that reclaims the rom-com territory with a resoundingly queer perspective, suggesting that sometimes, ambiguity can be a truly captivating form of romance.
Now, for a complete change of pace, Truong’s "VIET AND NAM" transports us to a plumb dissimilar place and era. It’s a stark departure from the lively, talkative worlds of the preceding two films. This is "arthouse cinema" at its most profound, a touching and deliberate contemplation of love, loss, and the enduring scars of a nation's warring past. Where THE SUMMER WITH CARMEN engaged in meta-commentary, VIET AND NAM unfolds as a cinematic lament, unearthing uncomfortable, concealed truths.
Set in 2001, Truong's film centers on two young coal miners, Viet and Nam (Pham and Dao, two lean figures of soulful eyes, they are almost interchangeable), whose secret love flourishes in the inky blackness of the mine. It's a hidden sanctuary, far from the judging eyes of society. The names are no arbitrary choice; they represent both the individuals and the fragmented nation of Vietnam, still grappling with the remnants of the Vietnam war (1955-1975), both physical and emotional. The coal mine, where workers literally dig into the earth for their livelihood, becomes a potent metaphor for Vietnam's collective memory, continually sifting through layers of history and trauma.
The director's decision to shoot on 16mm film imparts the visuals with a typically grainy, timeless sense, transforming the underground tunnels into sparkling, almost cosmic locales where love and passion are unleashed in a grimy, ethereal space. Truong thoughtfully interweaves the intimate queer romance with a broader national story: Nam’s mother’s poignant quest to find the remains of her husband, a soldier lost in the war (whose fate is divulged only near the end of the film). This dual narrative, linked by shared longing and the ghostly presence of the past, and Truong's gradualist inclination, all evoke the aesthetics of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and his compatriot Thien An Pham's glacially moving feature debut INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL (2023). It’s a somber tribute to all those lost and forgotten, to the bodies never recovered, and to the emotional burdens carried by generations. The film’s measured pace and sparse dialogue encourage viewers to be patient, inviting soul-searching reflection instead of immediate conclusions. Inner thought are conveyed or implied through sedate actions, prolonged gazes, the resonant soundscape of the mostly natural environs and their elemental forces.
VIET AND NAM is banned in its home country, perceived as "gloomy" and "negative." Yet, what some call pessimism is actually a rather truthful portrayal. Truong examines the lasting impact of suffering with a gentle, almost spiritual touch, intentionally avoiding any hint of romanticizing the pain. This film contributes to the advancement of queer cinema by offering an almost abstracted look at gay lives within a distinct historical and cultural context, prompting global audiences with a narrative that extends beyond Western-centric viewpoints, short of any external pressure or prejudice. The film's inherent beauty truly stands out in its brave depiction of resilience when facing significant sadness and societal constraints, tactfully uncovering hidden histories and giving a voice to those who’ve been marginalized, invoking a cosmic sense of loss and defiance in the darkest corner of our world, all carried over through Son Doan's sublime cinematography and Truong's tactile orchestration.
Finally, ON SWIFT HORSES, queer TV director Minahan's long-in-gestation sophomore feature film, transports audience back to the restrictive social atmosphere of 1950s America. This era might have appeared as perfect domestic bliss on the surface, but it often concealed a brewing pot of unspoken desires and surreptitious existences. It’s a film that sensitively depicts sapphic awakening and Uranian recklessness, but feels more like a sorrowful poem than a big, overt queer affirmation, gracefully portraying the painful yearning from a time of rigid regulations.
Its story revolves around two parallel journeys of self-discovery/self-destruction, bound by an almost psychic connection: Muriel (Edgar-Jones), a young housewife seeking more from life, and Julius (Elordi), her husband’s magnetic, yet restless, brother. Their bond - which idiotically and erroneously publicized as "physical attraction" in the film's trailer and promotion materials (hey, it is a film starring two red-hot rising stars, the "it" girl and the heartthrob! Incidentally, both carve out a lucid character arc against some script ellipses), is plain platonic, most of the time, the two don't even share the same space - centers on a tacit recognition of their shared otherness, a kindred spirit longing for a freedom against conformity and their common pull towards betting and gambling.
Minahan's restrained directing style, perhaps looks elegantly "old-fashioned", is pertinent to the film's era and ethos, adeptly using intimate moments, stolen gazes, and exacting period deets to express the tremendous weight of repression and the euphonious abandon of liberation. Muriel secretly betting on horse races, converting overheard tips into hidden cash, runs parallel to Julius's life as a gambler and con artist in Las Vegas. Gambling here is more than just a detrimental habit; it’s a potent metaphor for the hazards inherent in living an authentic queer life back then. Every bet seems to represent a gamble on being oneself, a desperate hope for a victory against overwhelming odds. But there is a decisive difference, Muriel knows when to call it quits whereas Julius cannot escape the impetus of jeopardy.
Similarly Julius' burgeoning, risky love affair with his colleague Henry (a dapper Calva) also mirrors Muriel's attraction towards her tomboy neighbor Sandra (Calle), after Cunning's Gail memorably strutting her stuff to trigger Muriel's latent desire. Though truth to be told, the two pairs' sexual attractions never arise to white heat as the script demands, especially in Muriel and Sandra's case, their fallout is so poorly conceived that it recoils on the film's whole agenda. In fact, Minahan invests more in Julius' trial and tribulation and a possibly brighter future with Henry than Muriel's lesbian try-out, almost reducing the latter to a momentous infatuation when Lee (Poulter, underplaying a masculine sensibility and openness) appears to be exceedingly understanding and beneficent towards the demise of his marriage.
Intriguingly, ON SWIFT HORSES bears out a distinctly revisionist vein in recent years that depicts contemporary queer scenarios with more discretion and tolerance, preferring quiet acts of defiance and connections than sledgehammer confrontations and irrevocable tragedies. Homosexuality becomes a private matter, external bigotry and malice is sensitively under check, even the dramatic struggles of coming-out receive the cold shoulder.
Across the foursome, a shared characteristic is their commitment to burrow into internal experiences and unspoken desires with a minimal extent of extrinsic interference. They achieve this goal via distinctive stylistic choices: Mavroeidis and Berger lean into observational pacing, carefree self-examination and heart-to-heart exchanges, while Truong and Minahan employ a more atmospheric, somber, artistic (either modern or classic) approach to calibrate certain mental states and specific historical weight.
Collectively these four films hearteningly reaffirm the incredible diversity and evolving maturity of queer storytelling climate, which is not monolithic but a vibrant spectrum, confidently pushing artistic boundaries, venturing into a vast range of emotions, identities and conundrums which can reverberate on any continent for their empathies, complexities, contentment or pathos.
referential entries: Yorgos Lanthimos' ALPS (2011, 7.1/10); Marco Berger's THE BLONDE ONE (2019, 7.3/10); Apichatpong Weerasethakul's CEMETERY OF SPLENDOR (2015, 8.3/10); Thien An Pham's INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL (2023, 6.9/10); Emerald Fennell's SALTBURN (2023, 8.1/10).
