The Place Between Our Bodies

Very much an experimental film this is a voice-over loosely linked with the "found" images that it accompanies.

I had this on my list of films to see for a long time before realizing that it was one of the unimpressive shorts on the same tape as Black Sheep Boy and that I'd already seen it. For me, this was another of those films where the description of the film was more interesting than the film itself.

That is not to say that this is bad. If you liked Black Sheep Boy, you will probably like this earlier piece but it is a cruder, somewhat less interesting "little brother" to the other piece. The even earlier piece Decodings is even less polished. The film maker seems to be making progress and I might well be interested in his next work.

I'm NOT sure that all three together are worth what the DVD goes for.

It's impossible for me to review "The Place Between Our Bodies" without revealing a couple of facts about myself: 1) I'm 60-something, mostly male-oriented bisexual man who came of age a half-decade after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and 2) I lived in San Francisco from 1982 to 1994 and of all the businesses on San Francisco's Polk Street -- which was the city's primary gay neighborhood before the rise of the Castro District in the late '70s -- only the Le Salon video store survived into the '80s (and is probably defunct now, thanks to the easy accessibility of online erotica today).

It wasn't until 2009 that I discovered "The Place Between Our Bodies" online. I didn't even know the film existed. Watching it, it is a true period piece about thr state of gay male sexuality and relationships in San Francisco in the early to mid '70s.

Indeed, much of what conprised gay culture and community in San Francisco inthe early '70s was still heavily influenced by the Haight-Ashbury hippies, so it came as no surprise to me that long hair was practically de rigeur among gay men at that time (And on a personal note, I wish it still was, as I fell deeply in love with the "flower children" and remain very much a hippie at heart half a century later).

Even for vintage gay erotic films of the '70s, "The Place Between Our Bodies" is a rarity; the only such film -- other than Arthur Bressan's "Passing Strangers," which also came out in 1975 -- that, at least visually, told a genuine love story. The latter part of the film, which shows a male couple making love in their bedroom, is a far cry from nearly all of the gay male pornography made in the last half-century.

It is quite evident from the looks on the couple's faces that they are very much in love with one another and that their lovemaking is with a deep intimacy you just can't find in today's commercial gay porn.

No one knows if, 43 years later, the couple is still together -- or even, in the face of the AIDS crisis that ravaged San Francisco's gay male population in the '80s, if either man is still alive (Both would be in their late 60s by now). But what they shared in front of the camera in 1975 was by far, in my estimation, the most beautifully intimate lovemaking between two men ever filmed.

I rented Black Sheep Boys, and found this as one of two additional short films by director Michael Wallin included on the DVD. It was, without a doubt, the best of the three films.

The narrator, using clips from 60's and 70's gay porno films, and still images from porn magazines of the same era, establishes his premise that sexual obsession is an internalized phenomenon in which his sexual encounters are merely living out fantasies, projecting his obsessions onto anonymous partners. The encounters provide only brief relief from his obsession, and then it returns as he cruises for the next partner who can fit into the template of his fantasies. Then he meets a man with whom he develops a relationship for the first time, and he questions the whole nature of his obsessions.

The first half of this film is well edited from grainy bits of old porn and street shots of a cruising district in some mid-70's city. The soundtrack is the narrator discussing his obsession and ultimate inability to satiate it. The second half resembles home movie footage, of the new boyfriend as the new relationship develops. Eventually the couple make love in a very beautiful, and completely graphic scene. It is completely convincing that this is video of two men in love having beautiful and passionate sex. It is hotter than any pornography that I've ever seen, yet it seems so real and beautiful and in now way sordid or dirty. I am pretty sure it is really what it seems to be, two men in love. The soundtrack for this portion is a discussion between the two men about sexual obsession and the realization that their obsession is coming from each other, and not just playing out internalized fantasies that they project.

In gay society, so many men manage to live their lives in the first half of the film, never coming to the realization of the second half of the film. Making that leap from sex to love is a hurdle many gay men today can't seem to face. This film makes a wonderful case for taking that leap!