Sebastian

 

Writer/director Mikko Mäkelä

director on the set with Ruaridh Mollica and Hiftu Quasem

SEBASTIAN              B                                                                                                                Great Britain  Finland  Belgium  (110 mi)  2024  d: Mikko Mäkelä

Born in a small town in Finland close to the Russian border, whose homophobic parents sent him to gay conversion therapy, Mäkelä moved to England at the age of 18 to study English and French literature, also studying drama before he began his filmmaking career as an editor.  But what grabbed his attention in college was the realization that many of his gay peers, students and grads in creative fields, were involved in sex work, facilitated by apps, marketing themselves online without shame.  Listed as one of the 25 LGBTQ filmmakers on the rise by indieWIRE in 2019, following the success of his earlier film A MOMENT IN THE REEDS (2017), an intimate drama about the chance encounter of two men by the Finnish lakeside.  Mäkelä is most interested in exploring questions of identity, creating stories about marginalized characters at odds with society, particularly within the context of queer cinema, where this film blurs the boundaries between fiction and autobiography.  In that same vein, Max (Italian-Scottish actor Ruaridh Mollica, who brings a certain intensity to the role) is an aspiring 25-year old writer in London who has received plenty of early acclaim, having been published in Granta, now writing for a trendy literary magazine named Wall, mostly short stories and reviews, but he has aspirations for a novel that he is working on, discovering something every writer contends with, wondering how to separate the boundaries between truth and fiction.  Premiering at the 2024 Sundance Festival, the director articulated his desire to make a “frank and honest portrayal of queer sexuality.”  To that end he has succeeded, as apparently gay sex seems to be the only graphic sex that movies still allow anymore, as they’ve been seriously streamlined out of most motion pictures, especially after Covid.  Mäkelä does not shy away from unflinching sex scenes which serve to enhance the film’s realism, where it is actually surprising to see such a healthy exhibition of simulated sex, which adds an element of transparency when it comes to relationships, as there’s some things you just can’t hide.  Max is excited about the idea of being assigned to interview American queer icon Bret Easton Ellis, who published his first novel at 21, and is the author behind Mary Harron’s subversive, off-the-wall, consumerist horror satire American Psycho (2000), generating plenty of publicity about the autobiographical content in his books.  A more senior writer on staff at the magazine, James (Michael Jean-Marain), expresses disappointment he was not getting the assignment, challenging whether it is more about the quality of the writing or the one who actually writes it, but the editor, Claudia (Lara Rossi), wanted someone with personal first-hand experience into the gay perspective, believing Max would bring some fresh insight into it.   

The film is essentially about writing a “pseudo-memoir” about the life of a gay sex worker, which leads Max, under the alter-ego pseudonym Sebastian, to compile experiences secretly meeting with mostly older clients through an online gay escort service, blending his personal encounters with his literary ambitions, where the boundaries are distinctly clear at first, but are increasingly blurred.  What starts out as a few spontaneous sexual encounters leads to a hidden subterranean world, where sex is the key to unlocking the pressures of modern gay life, discovering a deeper sense of self, running through a gamut of emotions from ecstasy, shame, and exhilarating liberation, with Max coming from perhaps the first generation of young gay men who can live openly, freely, and without shame.  Encouraged by a friend and female coworker at the literary magazine, Amna (Hiftu Quasem), Max believes he’s onto something, especially after his manuscript attracts the interest of a literary agent, editor, and publisher, Dionne (Leanne Best), though he admits it’s kind of a “stock character of queer literature,” so she encourages him to change his novel from a third-person to a first-person perspective, a “pseudo-memoir,” believing that would enhance his work.  Sex work has been around for a while, where one need look no further than Luis Buñuel’s artfully surrealist BELLE DE JOUR (1967), before that Mizoguchi’s STREET OF SHAME (1956), or more recently Sean Baker’s Anora (2024), while Gus van Sant explored a gay twist in My Own Private Idaho (1991), as did Gregg Araki in MYSTERIOUS SKIN (2004), where a list of films has been compiled on Letterboxd, Male Sex Workers , a list of films by Annie Rose Malamet.  This is a quieter, more introspective film, where the provocative opening scene (“So, tell me about yourself”) places viewers directly into the heated passion of naked gay sex, which can be startling for some, but Max comes across as an earnest, down-to-earth guy, keeping most of his private life to himself, while always appearing natural and authentic, where there’s not a hint of ego or arrogance about him, never placing himself above others, and while he’s open-minded about what he does, with the highs and lows that come with the territory, there’s also an element of secrecy, where his biggest fear is being exposed for leading a double life.  After his encounters, he quickly jots down the details before he forgets, often repeating verbatim the words that were actually said, yet each experience is unique, as each different partner has their own distinct personality.  Sex workers often tread into dangerous territory, or get themselves into precarious positions that can lead to violence, depending on the stability or state of mind of their clients, taking a particular dark turn with powerful businessman Daniel (Ingvar Sigurðsson), so there’s underlying tension and even dread with each encounter.  Nonetheless, Max gets drawn into this nocturnal world, propelling him into increasingly risky encounters, where drugs and alcohol abound, sending him into an erratic tailspin, which causes him to miss scheduled meetings or deadlines, considerably damaging his reputation at the magazine.  

A different female version of this has been seen before in gay filmmaker François Ozon’s Young & Beautiful (Jeune & Jolie) (2013), one of the notable influences on Mäkelä, where sex work is not something done out of monetary need but a journey of self-discovery, as a young woman’s sexual innocence turns darker and drearier.  Similarly, this develops a more somber mood, yet it’s exquisitely shot by Finnish cinematographer Iikka Salminen, featuring a lot of lengthy close-ups and a luminous brightness, turning this into a probing, psychological character study, with Max developing a purposefully impenetrable façade, much of it hiding the shame that he feels swelling inside, or as the director puts it, “the shame of being ashamed.” Tensions escalate with his mother back in Scotland, who disapproves of his lifestyle choices, but he attributes this to blatant homophobia, and tends to think she’s simply out of touch with the modern world, where so many of the everyday transactional relationships are done online, both private and professional, largely for the sake of convenience, where sex work has become increasingly normalized in London’s gig economy, rather than the sad and tragic last resort of how it was viewed in the past.  Much of what we learn about Max is seen through his encounters with others, initially seeming confident with himself, where his future is bright, but anxieties creep in with a developing paranoia, believing what’s private will eventually be exposed, so after he runs into one of his clients at a literary event, he panics, completely deleting his online presence, which is a mental breakdown of sorts, suddenly in an emotional freefall with no recognizable support mechanism.  The film takes a sophisticated turn with more screen time from an older, more culturally refined client, Nicholas (Jonathan Hyde, a revelation), a retired literature professor who is more interested in talking and establishing a personal connection with Sebastian, both intellectually and emotionally, than in anything physical.  His own passion for art is completely recognizable in the interior décor of his home, or in a book Max pulls from his bookshelf, Cyril Collard’s Savage Nights (Les Nuits Fauves), written at the height of the AIDS crisis in 1989, an erotic, autobiographical novel of a bisexual man’s voracious appetite for life in the face of potentially life-threatening danger.  With opera playing in the background, which extends into the bedroom, they have sex to the exotic (yet uncredited) refrains of Nadir’s Aria from Bizet’s rarely seen luxuriance from The Pearlfishers, Jussi Björling - Les Pecheurs de Perles Act l - Je crois ... YouTube (3:35), an ode to an intoxicating, dreamlike memory of pure enchantment, which adds an element of poetic transcendence.   

One can only speculate, but it certainly appears gays more easily accept age differences that might be deal breakers in most heterosexual relationships, probably due to the more transient nature of the hookups.  Completely shifting the cold sterility of the sex acts to moments of tenderness and deeper meaning throws his publisher for a loop, thinking that’s not really what sells, and advises him to change the direction he’s taken.  But this allows viewers into the psychological realms of the perpetually conflicted character, suddenly feeling what he feels, utterly abandoning himself to the spontaneity of the moment, Sebastian – Clip: "Have We Met?" YouTube (1:37), exuding his own euphoric freedom and youthful openness, perhaps best expressed by a brief scene in a theater watching Maurice Pialat’s À Nos Amours (To Our Loves) (1983), where Sandrine Bonnaire’s burgeoning sexuality is on full display, an essential way of connecting with the world.  He’s also drawn into the world he is researching and the eventual consequences of a divided existence, exploring the transgressive power of queer sexuality and the transformative impact that can result from embracing his own sexual autonomy, crafting a newly empowered identity through both art and sex work, which is especially significant since gays have historically been denied authority over their own lives.  Evidence the tragic downward-spiral career trajectory of gay icon Sal Mineo, typecast as a stalker and deranged killer in Joseph Cates’ Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965), which demonstrates how marginalized communities have to navigate difficult spaces that refuse to fully embrace or accept them, leaving them few options.  Sex work remains illegal in Sweden, for instance, despite being known for their progressive policies.  The film begins with an exploration of Max as an escort, yet evolves into an introspective narrative about a young writer wrestling with his creative impulses amid complex societal expectations regarding sexuality and reputation.  It hints at the struggles faced by those in the arts to balance personal expression against commercial viability, emphasizing the importance of self-honesty as the core of Max’s journey, while also addressing the stigma surrounding sex work.  Max is very protective of his private persona, not wanting to taint the prospects of a future career in writing, where he tells his publishers that the novel he is creating is based on extensive interviews, hiding the fact that it’s a great deal more than that, with much more at stake, putting himself in harm’s way for the sake of honesty, leading to many aggressively explicit sex scenes, told with a stark truthfulness that’s necessary to sell the full reality of Max’s life as Sebastian, never resorting to an exploitive quality.  Mäkelä complicates the notion of identity and the façades we create, exploring how such masks can distance us from genuine interaction and intimacy, yet Max’s real self also emerges, more tender and considerate, perhaps surprising even himself, evoking a core loneliness, Sebastian(2024) Gay sex scene YouTube (1:54).  While it maintains the tension of a thriller throughout, where things are satisfyingly unpredictable, this film continues to establish Mäkelä as a significant voice in contemporary queer cinema.

The Canyons

THE CANYONS        C-                   

USA  (99 mi)  2013  d:  Paul Schrader 

Something of a navel-gazing flick, a film infatuated with Los Angeles and voyeuristic window gazing at the supposed good looking people that comprise the latest edition of overindulgent Hollywood youth culture.  With a title that suggests a B-movie television series melodrama of luridly interconnected sexual affairs by vacuous, coke snorting, paranoid driven twentysomethings who all want to be in the sex business, who 24 hours a day believe they are part of the beautiful people that comprise the decadent, high-society world of Los Angeles, filling stylishly modern but sterile apartments that appear to be sets for magazine pieces, where what the characters that inhabit this world have in common is wretchedly horrible acting performances, where like a bad make-up job, they all seem to be intruding into this picture from far more inferior movies.  While Schrader will forever be known as the screenwriter for Scorsese’s monumental 70’s film Taxi Driver (1976), he’s always been suspect as a director, where his choice of screenwriting material from Bret Easton Ellis, the brilliant writer of American Psycho (2000), reads like sleazy and sensationalist TV, where it’s hard to take any of this seriously.  But if the point is to make something so awful that it actually becomes a parody of the sleazy world that it portrays, well, it’s still D-grade material, where people will only laugh at the damage done to Lindsay Lohan’s once promising career, and how at 26, she is now channeling the aged, over-the-hill Gloria Swanson in SUNSET BLVD. (1950), where you can just hear her say to herself,  “I *am* big.  It's the *pictures* that got small,” telling director Schrader “All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.”  In that same picture, William Holden narrates “Sometimes it's interesting to see just how bad bad writing can be.  This promised to go the limit.”  Who knew that the future would hold new challenges in this regard? 

The best things to say about the film are the exquisite Hollywood locations, luxurious homes in the hills, and interior production design that couldn’t be more exact, like the perfect look of a Kubrick film, and there are some interesting camera shots by John DeFazio.  But overall the film plays out like a campy television series that accentuates good looks and gossip, where people are in over their heads on a conceptual project that simply never comes together.  While there are noirish tendencies, this might have played better as a Black and White film noir, as it opens and closes on still photos of old abandoned moviehouses that sit alone in a state of decay, something of an eyesore on a desolate landscape, which may as well be the future of each one of these beautiful people who hope to use their good looks and sexual prowess to guide them to fame and stardom.  While Lohan as the supposedly sexually uninhibited Tara is not the real surprise, as her train wreck celebrity history as a nonstop party girl in and out of rehab centers leaves one with low expectations going in, the real surprise is that the awkward script is so cringeworthy and that these actors take themselves so seriously, as there’s not an ounce of intended humor anywhere to be seen, yet one can’t help but laugh *at* what we are seeing, as it’s basically just a story about people talking endlessly about themselves, where that’s all that matters in the world, nothing else, where they’re constantly worried what others think of them, always on a high state of alert in their paranoia about their relationships, yet they spend they’re lives “acting,” playing nonchalant, pretending that none of this matters, where they try to convince one another that everything’s cool even as they’re unraveling emotionally and freaking out. 

It’s not even appropriate to identify this as the world of sleaze, as it doesn’t do justice to the picturesque meaning of the word, as one thinks of sleaze with a certain old Hollywood charm or Russ Meyer lowgrade style, cheap films often shot in shadowy, Black and White film noir, where it’s a mix of lurid sex, booze, crime, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, and rampant immorality, often peppered with unintended humor, where characters are perceived as over the edge, or certainly willing to cross any moral line.  What’s so startling about this film is just how uninteresting everybody is, as there are only a few characters that appear onscreen, and they are completely forgettable, even as we are watching them, as there’s no hint of personality or screen chemistry anywhere.  Perhaps most memorable is James Deen as Christian, in real life something of a porn superstar making the crossover into legitimate films, playing Tara’s overcontrolling boyfriend, a trust fund movie mogul living on his father’s wealth, whose idea of fun is constantly trolling the Internet with his iPhone in his hand, searching for interested sex partners for himself and Tara, which he then films.  He’s a completely condescending, overstylized, and artificial character that continually mocks anyone that so much as hints of having any emotion, where at times he appears to be a younger apprentice version of Christian Bale in American Psycho.  While he’s obviously just an obnoxious, self-centered creep, Tara has left her real love interest, Ryan (Nolan Gerard Funk) and his floundering career as a Hollywood bartender, to live a lavish lifestyle in one of the most beautiful homes in the Hollywood hills.  An while feigning love, the two are about as openly suspicious of one another as deathly enemies, resorting to nefarious surveillance tactics to keep each under their watchful eye.  If any of this mattered, or if there was a spark of life anywhere on the set, there might be a movie, but it’s all lost in a superficial glaze of Hollywood sleepwalking.  By the way, where was Nicholas Cage during the shoot?  He might have provided some well-needed, unhinged energy that is sorely missing.