The Wounded Man

You've got to think along the lines of Last Tango in Paris for this one because the mood and emotion runs along the same lines and maintains the same heights - the difference being that in this exceptional, intense and torrid depiction of love among the ruins of a Dostoyevskyian dispossessed the setting is a gay-subcultural milieu - perhaps even one that is set to vanish in time, and not the equally arresting but heterosexual context of Bertolucci's own film.

The last third of this film depicts a passionate love never seen in gay cinema. To talk of pornography or gay self-effacement misses the point and intelligence of this work. This film, though on first impression appears to take us into the familiar & often depicted underworld of gay street-life, then precedes to subvert the rules of this genre by exaggerating it to a super-real degree. The result is a hyper-charged emotional heightening - an exceptional strategy that elevates the drama to one of big universal themes and giant gestures.

This film snatches the high ground because of the brilliant performances by it's actors, notably a young Jean Hugues Anglade and the directing. A tour- De -force of cinema. Outstanding in ambition and it's unceasing plummet into the depths of human emotion. As a contribution to gay cinema, this film conquers this difficult ground and makes it it's own triumph.

L'Homme Blesse is not for an impatient, adventure-seeking audience. There are no explosions nor is the drama straightforward. Like the films of Lynne Ramsey, the director is working more deeply with mood than with storytelling in a manner that is effective and incredibly moving. Because it does not rely on gratuitous nudity, or superficial pop-cult. story lines, this is quite frankly one of the best gay foreign film I have seen (also, see Francois Ozon, Pedro Almodovar). Nicolas Roeg's "Don't Look Now" gets a lot of bad press because it is sold as a horror film. That film, like L'Homme, is more than what the box might lead you to believe. If you are in the mood to sit back and be absorbed by the subtle, transformed powers of cinema, you'll love this movie.

Anglade, the young man, mesmerizing in this as was Mezzogiorno. After awhile you could not take your eyes off of Anglade. He exuded sexuality and became desireous to Mezzogiorno's character.

Proves you don't need to spend the whole day in the gym and take multivitamins and Lord knows what else to be so attractive and sexy at the same time to defy words. Also, Anglade in this defined brooding, still waters and smouldering desire all at the same time.

The scenes between the the 2 were electric to me. Even at the fateful end.

Hard to believe this gem of a film got passed over for so many years.

Not what I expected. So glad I watched it.

Though for most of us, sexiness is a variable quality, I cannot recall a movie that did for me what this one does. It transported me into an awfully familiar realm of longing and desire. All the compulsive attraction, uncertainty over the outcome, the palpable fear and excitement so attendant to that state of arousal were brought to fever pitch by this flick. So French and what I consider daring! No matter what your orientation, I think that the danger of chasing your desire is brought full-front and center here...much more so, say, than with Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut".

Made in the 1980's and presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983 this superb film directed by Patrice Chereau and written by him and the writer Herve Guibert has never been given a certificate in the UK ( banned ? I have no idea ) and to my knowledge was shown once at the National Film Theatre during a gay season of films. To my knowledge it sank without trace after that and was brought out in the US in a copy that seemed like a copy of a copy and that I found unwatchable. I saw it when it originally came out in Paris and now I have it on a DVD from France in perfect condition. All this detail to ask simply why this great film, comparable to ' Sauvage ' has not been released and respected in our English speaking countries ? Most of Chereau's other films have, and Herve Guibert's work is not unknown in English. Is it because it was considered too savage and to my knowledge even the gay orthodoxy put it to one side ? I believe that the film should have been applauded for the brutality shown in male contact, and how a youth cannot understand such horror of sexual exploitation and how he allows himself to be drawn into it. It shows openly the confusion among men who really do not identify as being ' Gay ' and hang around train stations looking for sexuality. I hope it is not a spoiler that two wounded men are destroyed in an act of crazed love ( l'amour fou ) and it is us as a society that have led to this destruction. Mainstream cinemas showed it in France and I believe it paved the way for that marginal approach to homosexual subject matter that has led to some of the more braver directors of today.