belhuepress

I agree with most of the user reviews here: I did not see, in any way, the coming of the ending of this movie, and the way the director pushes it us, it seemed so ambiguous that I had to view it twice to figure out what had actually happened. I have long known that in extremely Catholic, conservative Hungary, homophobia is an arm of the state religion, but here there are moments that seem too contradictory for me to process them. Like why do the two central characters keep coming back to one another, and what real role does the father of the main character play: he is both ugly, manipulative, homophobic as hell, and still shows genuine love for his son?

The movie though is very beautiful, and for a long time I was just mesmerized by it. The director has a superb sense of pacing, and also of using the landscape as part of the character of the action. I just wish that things were a bit more spelled out.

I really enjoyed this movie-the main character's actions are extremely believable, having grown up in a very repressed environment in the American South, pre-Stonewall, when most gay men were expected either to commit suicide or "convert." Times have changed, but not for the Turkish community in Switzerland who come from rural Turkey, in an extremely homophobic culture where carryinig on the family name asnd mores is mandatory.

One of the great roles in the movie is Beyto's mother, who is warm, caring, but essentially clueless. In effect she tries to control her son through the typical emotional blackmail that conservative parents use, but she also shields Beyto from his father who goes into violent rages over Beyto's gay feelings. In some situations, these parents and their friends would have resorted to "honor killings" to preserve family pride. That Beyto will resist his parents, especially his pig-headed father, shows how much Western culture and gay liberation, which has a role in the film through a Gay Pride parade in Berne, has affected the world.

I did not find the ending at all "tacked on," but it shows the development of the lead characters-and how far they will go for personal happiness, and a chance that most people in their own world will not give them. This is a really good film, and I hope others will discover it.

This is a really strange, at times puzzling movie about the lower depths of the New York gay club scene filled with enough internalized homophobia to sink the Good Ship Lollipop, as well as the Titanic. A lot of things in it make little sense, and I think that Pau Maso really overestimated his skill and even talent trying to do everything on it-act, write, direct, etc.

But ultimately I found it appealing and even satisfying-Aleksandre hits pure rock bottomn and has to either come up or die. And he does come up, and survives.

I have always said, after many years of living in NY, that if you want to destroy yourself, there is a whole army of people in New York who will be more than happy to help you do it; then once they have pushed you to your own self destruction, they will just go on to the next sucker.

This movie proves it.

Perry Brass.