Paris la nuit avec Theo et Hugo

THEO & HUGO, 2016. Hugo (François Nambot) and Théo (Geoffrey Couët) meet, in a highly-explicit fashion, in a French sex club. After they put their clothes back on and head into the Paris night, their conversation about how their sexual encounter had a deeper meaning seems to indicates the start of romance (though one has to ask who looks for romance in a naked sex club?) But their budding affair comes under strain when the confession of a mistake by one of the young men prompts a revelation from the other. 

This is pretty much a two-hander film which both actors rise to – including having real sex with each other. Paris by night is fascinatingly depicted too – I used to know to well in the 80s – as we take in the kebab shop and the first metro. The long central hospital sequence is interesting too, as the film plays out more or less in real time.

The long twenty-minute opening sequence in the sex club may be an eye-opener for some, but once the actors get dressed and venture out into the Paris night as they tentatively get to know each other the plot develops as we take in the consequences of having unprotected sex …..a more explicit WEEKEND (2011) then.

I like directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s earlier JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY from 1998, also an Aids-related subject starring Virginie Ledoyen and Mathieu Demy, the son of Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda. This latest film of the duo Ducastel and Martineau is another major landmark in gay cinema.

A different kind of gay flick is the Hungarian LAND OF STORMS from 2014, by Adam Csaszi. It drew me in with its slow moody pace, as we follow the young footballer Szabi, who has an intense relationship with  fellow player Bernard, as he returns to his rural village to renovate a house he has inherited as he wants to give up football; he hires surly local youth Aron to help and another relationship of sorts develops, to the annoyance of Aron's ailing mother and the villagers. Bernard turns up to re-claim Szabi who has to decide what he really wants. The ending though is a nasty surprise one is not expecting, but I suppose it highlights the East European homophobic mindset (though Hungary, like the Czechs) had a booming porn industry.