Skip to main content

An Intimate, Thrillingly Provocative Film of Manic Desire


Throughout most of Passages, the new movie by queer indie filmmaker Ira Sachs, it is incredibly easy to hate Tomas (Franz Rogowski). This is a guy who through no one’s fault but his own ruins both his long-term relationship and the affair that he thought would become something more via his toxic co-dependency and a small helping of emotional manipulation. He only seems concerned as far as his own feelings go and how much others validate them. You feel irritated by him, frustrated -you can’t wait for his partners to leave. But then, right in the end stretch, you feel pity. This poor idiot desperate to be loved gains a new dimension of humanity -that has been lingering through all of his bullshit and just needed the right context to be made fully palpable.
There are a lot of conflicted feelings evoked by this movie -appropriate given it is about conflicted feelings in a romantic and sexual sense. Sachs is somewhat known in the American independent scene for his more complex depictions of gay relationships in movies like The Delta and Keep the Lights On; Passages is no different as it focuses on a married gay man who falls in love with a woman. Tomas is a German filmmaker living in Paris with his English husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) when he meets at a wrap party an alluring schoolteacher Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Martin has been emotionally distant lately (he leaves the party early after refusing to dance), which seems to be the impetus for Tomas to have sex with Agathe. Afterwards he is open about it to Martin and their relationship begins to dissolve -which Tomas tries hard to hold onto whilst still continuing the affair with Agathe, evidently determined to be with both of them in some capacity.
It’s fortuitous I just reviewed The Bigamist, considering this movie is pretty similar -though Sachs doesn’t treat Tomas with the same sympathy that Ida Lupino does Edmond O’Brien’s character. We see from the first scene how particular a director Tomas is, how he needs to be in control of everything -and throughout this movie he struggles to maintain that control in both his relationships and his desires. He appears to feel guilt over betraying Martin and yet he has sex with Agathe again the very same day. After seeing Martin apparently out and embarking on a new relationship, his jealousy drives him to go back to their home and seduce his husband while still having no intention to break things off with Agathe. And he leaves both, who have barely met one another, feeling neglected.
Sachs and Rogowski have created a real piece of work with this character -someone who is reprehensible in how he treats the people he supposedly cares about and yet is also captivating, charismatic even. Rogowski, in his first leading showcase on the international stage, makes a striking impression on his unique features and personal style alone -he’s got the sharp face and the smirk of a Machiavel, through which he relates well this air of ambition especially in matters of an almost salacious carnal need. Lust and sex are the catalysts of the trouble Tomas brings. When he confesses to Martin his original sin it is not with shame but enthusiasm -he is jubilant at the experience of heterosexual sex and wants Martin to know all about it. In two intense sex scenes, one straight one gay, it is his pleasure that takes focus -even when he’s obscured in frame. He certainly isn’t in one scene where he masturbates Agathe -despite the pleasurable sensation being hers, it’s him who the camera is drawn to.
That’s not to say either Agathe or Martin are comparably non-sexual. Indeed, they each have their own particular sexual tension with Tomas that speaks to their respective brands of intimacy -hers thrilling and sensual, his comfortable yet passionate. Agathe has no other lovers in the film, but while separated from Tomas, Martin begins a relationship with Ahmad (Erwan Kepoa Falé), with whom he shares a warmth and honest tenderness that seems alien to the other pairings. Still, they are each brimming with erotic subtext, Sachs is very open not only in his depictions of sex but how it innately informs, even dictates these relationships. And it’s not even all about Tomas’ uncontrollable proclivities -Agathe and Martin are each enraptured by their lusts, if less chaotically so. Each of them are drawn as fundamentally sexual beings that Sachs and the actors highlight through the intimacy of the camera, visceral nuances in physicality, how they dress, how they are lit, etc. Exarchopoulos and Whishaw, both already beautiful people, have rarely been more flattered by a movie.
They both give stupendous performances as well -complimentary foils to Rogowski’s impulsiveness. Poor Martin earns all your sympathy as Whishaw again plays a character you can’t help but immediately empathize with -whose only sin was simply being settled in a relationship. And as Agathe, Exarchopoulos is cogently relatable as well, as the weight of her relationship with Tomas presses down on her with new emotional consequences. For as attractively sensual as the movie is (hell, probably because of it), it spotlights with gruelling efficacy the trauma of a toxic relationship. I alluded to Tomas’ emotional manipulation, which is especially blunt in one scene where he begs Martin to take him back, at the same time endeavouring to convince him to essentially include Agathe in a polyamorous arrangement. He tries a similar tactic with Agathe in the eleventh hour. It’s also unconfirmed but likely he has sex with Martin at least in part to soften the blow of some news about Agathe, and later he causes a scene in front of her parents when aiming to appear as a responsible partner. Deftly, Sachs illustrates the way it all builds up, and in one of the film’s best scenes –the only one between Martin and Agathe alone- we see the toll this relationship has taken on each of them, the deep mutual understanding in spite of their differences, the last straw that has broken for her and is about to break for him.
Still, Sachs and Rogowski hold off painting Tomas as an easy villain, and there really is something abject to where he ends up that casts him, his behaviour and actions throughout the movie in a different light; not a positive one, but one significantly more sorrowful. What Passages reminds me a lot of is Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together –which also depicts the dissolution of an intimate gay relationship, albeit with the principal focus reversed. Passages is more raw and deserves to be –a movie all about the complex drive for sex, love, and desire, its capacity for passion but also abuse and emotional devastation. One of the more engaging and genuinely daring queer films in recent memory too; and a stunning showcase in every sense of that word for its cast and their intuitive director.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disney's Mulan, Cultural Appropriation, and Exploitation

I’m late on this one I know. I wasn’t willing to spend thirty bucks back in September for a movie experience I knew was going to be far poorer than if I had paid half that at a theatre. So I waited for it to hit streaming for free to give it a shot. In the meantime I heard that it wasn’t very good, but I remained determined not to skip it entirely, partly out of sympathy for director Niki Caro and partly out of morbid curiosity. Disney’s live-action Mulan  I was actually mildly looking forward to early in the year in spite of my well-documented distaste for this series of creative dead zones by the most powerful media conglomerate on earth. Mulan  was never one of Disney’s classics, a movie extremely of its time in its “girl power” gender politics and with a decidedly American take on ancient Chinese mythology. It got by on a couple good songs and a strong lead, but it was a movie that could be improved upon, and this new version looked like it had the potential to do that, emphasizing
Post a Comment
Read more

The Hays Code was Bad, Sex in Movies is Good

Don't Look Now (1973) Will Hays, Who Knows About Sex In 1930, former Republican politician and chair of the Motion Picture Association of America Will Hayes introduced a series of self-censorship guidelines for the movie industry in response to a mixture of celebrity scandals and lobbying from the Catholic Church against various ‘immoralities’ creating a perception of Hollywood as corrupt and indecent. The Hays Code, or the Motion Picture Production Code, was formally adopted in 1930, though not stringently enforced until 1934 under the auspices of Joseph Breen. It laid out a careful list of what was and wasn’t acceptable for a film expecting major distribution. It stipulated rules against profanity, the depiction of miscegenation, and offensive portrayals of the clergy, but a lot of it was based around sexual content: “sexual perversion” of any kind was disallowed, as were any opaquely textual or visual allusions to reproduction, and right near the top “No licentious or suggestiv
Post a Comment
Read more

Pixar Sundays: The Incredibles (2004)

          Brad Bird was already a master by the time he came to Pixar. Not only did he hone his craft as an early director on The Simpsons , but he directed a little animated film for Warner Bros. in 1999, that though not a box office success was loved by critics and quickly grew a cult following. The Iron Giant is now among many people’s favourite animated movies. Likewise, Bird’s feature debut at Pixar, The Incredibles , his own variation of a superhero movie, is often considered one of the studio’s best. And for very good reason, as the most talented director at Pixar shows.            Superheroes were once the world’s greatest crime-fighting force until several lawsuits for collateral damage (and in the case of Mr. Incredible, a hilarious suicide prevention), outlawed their vigilantism. Fifteen years later Mr. Incredible, now living as Bob Parr, has a family with his wife Helen, the former Elastigirl. But Bob, in a combination of mid-life crisis and nostalgia for the old day
1 comment
Read more