Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Boy love
In this case not the pedophilic kind but rather the kind between two boys.
Or rather gay boys just at the cusp of adulthood.
Very tricky ground.
And the film avoids both the cliché and the prurient.
Made in the Philippines. The boys in question are sort of innocent even if one of them dances as a stripper in a seedy night club.
The other is a middle class boy of 14 who is looking for, well, what?
He knows that he is gay. He knows that he likes to look. So he goes to a strip show on a Sunday night when there are no other patrons.
He is told that he can take on of the boys home for a fee. He pays up.
They go home.
What happens is at the core of the film which is quite beautiful as this type of film is meant to be.
There is a lot of fantasy at play here but it is not really bad fantasy. Everyone gets out unscathed. Even the innocent, sort of, mother.
This all takes place on New Years Eve after all.
Symbolic, yes.
I have seen this before. It is short and sweet. I am not turned on by kids, well not until they are older than maybe 18 and mature 18 at that. Perhaps 30.
The film manages to traverse a slippery road and come out the other side with a good taste that is, I think, hard to do.
I have seen this a couple of times so it is a 5 out of Netflix5 even though it is not a great film it is straight from and to the heart. Straight.
