Genèse (2018)

English title: Genesis

Director: Philippe Lesage

Stars: Noée Abita, Paul Ahmarani, Marc Beaupré...

Genre: Drama


Country: Canada


Summary: Three teenagers are shaken up by their first loves in the turmoil of their youth. At a time when others are conforming, they stand their ground and assert their right to love and be free.

When I started watching this movie, I didn't expect three different stories that aren't connected to each other. Maybe they are connected by a theme or an idea that they're sharing, but it's actually three short movies in one, not a one whole movie for those of you still wondering.

So, what is this about? As the summary says, it's about three young people (one of them literally a child) searching for love and acceptance. Each of them is going through different things. First story is of a guy coming to terms with his sexuality. The second story is about a girl that, after her boyfriend said he wanted more free space to maybe experiment with other people, felt hurt by that and wanted to distance herself from him as she didn't feel the same amount of security in their relationship anymore. At least that's how I interpreted it. She dumps the boyfriend and goes out into the world trying to find what she needs, only to return to him after getting hurt even worse and disappointed at how it went for her with other people. The third story I didn't even try to follow as it was completely not interesting to me. As for what I've seen, it's about a young boy falling in love with a girl for the first time in a summer camp.

So, there's that. The first story was the most interesting to me by its theme since it corresponds to this blog. But it's nothing special. There's no romance, nothing happens. The main character is very brave so he confessed to his crush in front of the whole class (though I wonder if that was necessary) and it went well. No bullying, bashing or other horrible things so that was definitely positive. But we can slowly see how the people are starting to distance themselves from him because of his confession. And then the movie ends. Just like that. They all do. We have no idea what happens to the characters after what they go through, there's no sense of closure. It may annoy some viewers, but it's certainly not the first movie to do this and some of you may be even used to that kind of endings by now.

The second story was okay even though there's no gay theme present. I already said everything you need to know about it. What I need to add is that this second movie has a rape scene in it. It's of course unpleasant and certainly didn't make me like the movie more.

Other than all of this, I think the soundtrack was interesting and I recognized a song I like in there.

So, there you go. If I knew all of this before, I probably wouldn't watch the movie as it's not what I'm looking for currently. I like my movies to be more concentrated on romance. Based on the pictures, it looked like this movie had the potential for that, but it was a different concept than what I had in mind.

Fin de siglo (2019)

English title: End of the Century

Director: Lucio Castro 

Stars: Juan Barberini, Ramon Pujol, Mía Maestro

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: Argentina

Summary: Two men meet in Barcelona and after spending a day together they realize that they have already met twenty years ago.

This was a weird movie. It starts with Ocho (the main character) traveling alone, sightseeing, touring the city, going to a beach... On a beach he encounters a guy and they have some eye-contact, are interested in each other, but nothing happens. Ocho returns back to his apartment and goes out on his balcony only to find the guy from the beach strolling by his apartment. He invites him up and they have sex. It happens so casually. I keep wondering how far away from that kind of interaction I am in my own life, to invite someone to my apartment just like that and be so relaxed with a stranger... That's strange to me.

After talking for a bit, they exchange numbers, hug and it's all pretty cute. Later they go out together and start talking about their lives. Ocho is recently single and enjoying his alone time traveling the world... Maybe it's supposed to portray a sense of freedom and liberation, but to me it just seemed very lonely and isolating, very common for a figure of a 21st century man, I would say. Javi (the other guy) is in an open marriage as he says, the couple even adopted a baby. And then we find an interesting information: they already met before some 20 years ago. The thing I kept thinking after they showed how they met: how could anyone possibly forget an encounter like that? Javi remember Ocho, but Ocho doesn't remember Javi. I wasn't buying it.

Then in the end we have an alternate timeline showing us Ocho and Javi as a couple having a baby. I have no idea what was that supposed to mean. Is it really an alternate universe, like a fairy tale ending of them and what they could have achieved together? Or is it actually connected to other two timelines present... The thing that popped into my mind was: maybe it was them all along. Maybe they became a couple, married and eventually their relationship got boring so they wanted to reinvent their meeting and initiate new sparks so they split up for a while and then met again at the very place they first met and role played some new lives they could've lead so that they could fall in love again? I know it probably sounds stupid, but it just popped into my mind as I watched the movie and I wanted to write it down.

I didn't expect this movie to be so complex. The different (and possibly alternate) timelines were pretty confusing.

Moonlight (2016)

Director: Barry Jenkins

 

Stars: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Trevante Rhodes...

Genre: Drama

Country: USA

Summary: A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood.

I've finally watched this movie. I guess you've probably heard of it by now and most of you probably watched it. Rotten Tomatoes puts it on 1st place in their list of 200 Best LGBT Movies of All Time. I disagree with Rotten Tomatoes. My list is a little bit different, but I still think this was a good movie. Tough one, but good. And when I say tough, boy do I mean it! First 80% of the movie gave me such anxiety. A little boy and then a teenager growing up in harsh environment - poverty, his mum doing drugs and neglecting him, other boys bullying him, being gay... The film is divided in three parts: first is the childhood, then the teenage years and the adulthood. From early on in his life he found a friend that later became a crush. His crush betrayed him and treat him sooo badly at one point that the main character's whole life just slid downwards from that point onward.

Chiron eventually became an adult, toughened up and tried to forget about his earlier life, but then unexpectedly he receives a call from his childhood crush who, in my own interpretation, only half-heartedly apologizes to him and wants to meet up. I had such a bad feeling about it as I was expecting Chiron, being a fool in love, to be taken advantage of again and that some tragedy is going to happen, but the movie actually has a somewhat happy ending, if you can call it like that.

I know for certain that I would never forgive Kevin for what he did (that's probably my Mars conjunct Pluto in Scorpio talking). Seriously, if that's love - I don't need that sh*t! I think the strong part of this movie is the subtle nuances that we, as audience, can notice in Chiron - that, even though he's physically sooo different in his adulthood than he was in his childhood, psychologically he hasn't changed a bit. He's still such a vulnerable, sensitive person and life is still tough for most of them. I wish we had seen Juan and his girlfriend meeting with Chiron after all those years as they've helped young Chiron when he needed a place to stay and such things. That would also be a great closure, but this happy ending we got is still better than nothing.