Warning
If you haven't got used to Sokurov's style, you might find a film a bit boring. If you love his style, no problem.
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momoro - Hope you've had a chance to see this movie by now.
No doubt, if one comes from a culture (such as my own, American) in which close, physical relationships between people of the same sex are usually assumed to have a sexual element to them, then homoerotic impressions and expectations are very hard to banish when watching a movie such as this one. If one, however, is able to realize, and appreciate, that there are other cultures, such as Russian, in which physical, non-sexual same-sex relationships are not doubted, barred, prohibited or otherwise frowned upon or questioned, then we can get over this hurdle. Please, take the director's word for it. Can we get comments and confirmations from Russians or those who have spent time in this culture (or even have familiarity with Russian cinema)?
I hope that visitors to this thread have read some of the more sensitive comments about this movie (Chris Knipp, ([email protected]), Howard Schumann and delta-21). Here are some of my own:
One is most struck by the intense beauty of this film: the soft natural colors; the framing, the images; the physicality of the men in their romping, wrestling, playing and otherwise interacting; the beauty of the city of Lisbon. Life seems at times to be in perpetual sunrise or sunset (symbolically, the beginning or end?). Without a strong narrative, one must pay close attention to gestures, meaning of words, intentions, history, future. It is a mystery to be contemplated and which I admit I did not fully grasp. I have a critically significant experience with Russian cinema, and so am familiar with its concerns, moods and explorations. I was most fully able to appreciate it on the level of male relationships--their physicality, their unspoken longings, their competitiveness.
Please, again, calling all those familiar with the Russian culture, and Russian language speakers. Give us your impressions and insights.
If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.
~ Tolstoy
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There's nothing homoerotic in this film. Sokurov himself denied this kind of interpretation of his film.
Homoeroticism is not Sokurov's ultimate concern here, so it is not surprising that he denies there is any such element in the movie. However, this film is a follow-up to Mother and Son, and its primary theme is the same: spirituality. In the first film, every frame is soaked with the Orthodox theology behind iconography, especially the mother and son depictions known as the "mother of tenderness." In short, exploring the extreme intimacy between mother and son on the brink between this world and the next becomes a symbolic way of exploring spirituality itself.
Similarly, in this film, the son-father relationship is a proxy for the human-God relationship (even with some surprisingly heavy-handed references to crucifixion as being integral to this relationship). But in order to convey the Orthodox sense of union with God, Sokurov clearly pushes the boundaries of a normal father and son relationship. And whether it is the U.S., Russia, or Madagascar, the close gazes into each other's eyes and naked caresses would be interpreted as homoerotic. Yes, Sokurov (somewhat disingenuously) denies this element, but only because he is not interested in such matters being taken literally; his true interest is spirituality, a spirituality steeped in Orthodox notions of intimacy. share