The Male Gaze: Compagnia a 3

Where do I begin? OK, with the best film which was from Japan, "Les Saints de Kiko". A painter stumbles over a couple of gay guys on the beach and gets close to them over a period for her inspiration. Their interaction leads to changes in the her personal and professional life. These bare bones don't sound promising, I know, but I don't want to leave spoilers. A definite eight out of ten.

The rest? Well the utterly worst short that I ended up fast forwarding through was "Thelma". Just a load of irrelevant tosh with a precocious brat. Irritating and empty, completely devoid of any real commentary on relationships or life.

"Gilles"? An interesting premiss but terribly contrived. Unconvincing too in that the boyfriend did not come to the aid of the guy getting a kicking.

I just didn't get "Golden Boys". A meeting of old schoolfriends years after graduation with flashbacks to their time as bullying jocks. What was it for? Hints and suggestions that two of the guys might have deeper, long-suppressed feelings for each other were all very well, but the film was ultimately pointless.

"In beating cells" was just stupid. Four friends camp at a lake but bring no food and pretend to have left society. A group sex encounter leads to a reordering of the dynamics of the two couples with wholly unbelievable motivations, actions and consequences.

I left "Le milieu d'un lac" till last. There were some acutely observed interactions and motives but again, in the short time of the film, they seemed somehow artificial. Nonetheless, it's the second best film of this sorry collection, but that's not saying much - it's only that all bar one of the others were so dire, the bar is very low.

In conclusion, a huge waste of time and effort. It's not worth paying to watch this collection for the one excellent film that it contains.