Opiniones de usuarios

The road to perdition is well-travelled and well-documented in movie history. This particular `Road Movie' is set mostly in Switzerland in the mid-1970's, a conceit I see as the one lie in a very truthful film. This could be set anywhere at anytime but if a director is going to film a period piece, then he'd better watch for the anachronisms; they can be his undoing! Watching one more character destroy himself on drugs and booze might have been cliche, however, the two young actors, Frédéric Andrau (Fögi) and Vincent Branchet (Beni), save us from this fate. Both are utterly convincing; I believed everything about them and I believed Beni's love for Fögi in all it's misguided, self-destructive force. The ending, inevitable and tragic, is saved from banality by Beni's `lesson learned', which is as original as it is poignant.

An addicted relationship between a minor and a adult is still a controversial topic, and, from time to time, I am intrigued to see how such a "liaison" is depicted. As F. est un salaud includes a gay theme as well, there are "mandatory" topics of prostitution, mental issues and drugs, visible through a 25-y.o. and a 15-y.o. males, while the latter is performed by a 20-y.o. actor not looking younger... There are some brave scenes and good camera-work, but the film is primarily a record of young affection and obedience rather than a versatile depiction of characters evolving. Moreover, it leaves some issues unclear as well: was gay life in the 1970ies Switzerland really as open and easy? What about Beni's family when he began to live with Fögi? The ending was also hasty and without any surprise.

As I was referred to this film from a film I really liked I had apparently higher hopes, but I have to recognise that F. est un salaud did not fully conform to my type of nature and values. But those fond of unconditional love and artistic lifestyle might squeeze more out of it.

Judging by the few IMDb votes this film has, and the fact that it's seven years old, it appears that this one escaped the consciousness of even the gay audience, which is a shame, because it's actually very good. Its emotional detail is just about note for note on target. I'd put it in the same class with "Edge of Seventeen," a deceptively simple movie with the same kind of quiet, intelligent emotional resonance. (I'm looking forward to see if I can get some of Gisler's other movies, which looks like it may be a task.)

The film starts, "Sunset Boulevard"-style, with a tragedy, but luckily the film proper is fully fleshed-out -- it doesn't feel like an afterthought; it's more like the framing device used is a nice little stylistic device. It doesn't need to be there, but it doesn't detract, either. I felt while watching it that the film would make a very good book -- and it was based on one, apparently. But because this is a film, and a fairly small-budget one at that, it focuses primarily on the intimate, and that's what makes it such a consistent pleasure. The intimacy is quite startling; the first sex, for instance, with Beni's spit dangling from his lip to Fogi's skin, exploring Fogi's body with his lips and nose. It's incredibly erotic. But better than that, there's a rare tenderness that's very admirable. And I don't just mean their kisses (though that is part of it), I mean the generosity the filmmaker gives to the characters, the way he indulges in the druggy ecstasy of the first lust/love but also doesn't shy away from their tendency toward self-hatred.

Their relationship is very much a role-playing game: it's the rock star fantasy, and Beni, in his tight shirt, is a male groupie -- Fogi's special boy. His infatuation with Fogi makes sense if we get in his head, but the film doesn't make us feel it, especially; we don't feel the "rebellion" that Beni sees in Fogi (and Fogi's music isn't very memorable, or outrageously "rock"). As the relationship deepens, the role-playing becomes more sexual in nature, but the undercurrent of damaging emotions remain. Beni becomes a slave boy to his studly master, and the emotional degradation we begin to witness (Beni clinging, in his underwear, to Fogi's legs as he kicks him out) brought to mind Frank Norris' writing -- Beni barking like a puppy dog for sexual play, but also with a degree of self-loathing. (It recalls the rush of contradictory emotions in the scene in "Blue Velvet" where Isabella Rossellini begs Kyle MacLachlan to hit her.) It would seem that, when we see this formerly innocent fanboy now nuzzling his face in Fogi's crotch after having been humiliated by him (Fogi pours milk on him when he refuses to move), the Beni character has taken an unbelievable turn, but the transitions -- both of the film and of Beni's character -- feel smooth. (And the emotional specificity of the sexual games ring incredibly true.)

I think, by the time the end comes around, a certain sense of sadness permeates the film that is quite fine. The ending works according to the delusional aspect of the relationship -- at first Beni's recollections seem almost ridiculous, but it's very much in tune with what we've just seen. Heartbreaking, because kids do think like this. 9/10

Outstanding acting, great casting, and really tight direction work together to make an unsparingly tragic plot both utterly believable and inexplicably hopeful.

Dark, sexy and very disturbing, the film's central theme is of love: though it is used, abused, warped and betrayed, it retains a strange and constant purity throughout, even up to the central character's almost shocking conclusion at the end. There is no question of bestowing any redemptive power on love, since this is a film of unflinching reality, but love's ability to provide sense to an existence otherwise bereft of meaning is shown to the full. There are few films that try to do this. Even fewer succeed, but this is one of them.

I wonder what I would have thought of this 26 year old Swiss film had I seen it when it was first released?! I know that I had never heard of it. I also know that I don't think it is all that good, but I've a feeling I would have appreciated it more in 1998 when we were more accustomed to all films about gay men leading to tragedy and pain. It's not that it's terrible, but it's kind of pointless and very depressing. The somewhat unbelievable story of a very young man's love for an older rock singer who is also a drug addict who initially displays love and kindness, but who eventually and predictively becomes cruel, unkind and selfish as his career and life go in a downward cycle as the drugs become a larger and larger part of his life with a failing career and a very bleak outlook on life. I know young love can be irrationally strong and blind, but eventually this teenager's (he seems that young) made to humiliate himself for the singer's pleasure, prostitute himself for money and the singer's drugs with even worse consequences to come and I just didn't buy a bond that strong given the abuse we see. However, I suppose such sick relationships do exist, but I don't want to see them. The bastard and singer, Fogi, is played quite well by Frédéric Andrau. It's sometimes ugly, but his performance is pretty on target and his music is not bad either. The young man who will do anything for this loser is played by Vincent Branchet and he is decent enough, but you just want to slap the character he is portraying. There are a lot of films about gay men from many countries around the world. This is not one I would recommend.

From the other comments {as of 2001 when I first wrote about this film here} you might think "Fogi is a Bastard" is a total loser film; but I think those others missed the boat on this one. It remains the #1 film I'd like to own on video, one that actually breaks new ground in examining a hot, if dysfunctional, gay love affair. For me, it was the best film at OUTFEST 1999; and even though as a film it probably is not a masterpiece, as a gay film it is so amazing and mind blowing that it has replaced "Law of Desire" (by Almodòvar), as my all-time favorite gay film. Vincent Branchet plays Beni, a schoolboy in 1974 Switzerland, who develops a crush on Fogi the notoriously gay lead singer/guitarist of a local punk band, "The Minks". They form a relationship which starts out as innocent puppy dog attraction with wonderful sex, and which devolves to heavy sado-masochism as Fogi descends into heroin addiction and starts hiring out Beni as a call-boy and treating the willing and cooperative Beni as his dog (too bad the more apropos title, "My Life as a Dog" was already taken). It sounds unpromising, I know. Yet the film is such an unsparingly realistic portrayal; the actors so outstanding (Branchet is both the most attractive young actor and one of the best actors period that I've seen in several years; and Frederic Andrau, who plays Fogi is no slouch, himself) that it all works. The film is beautifully shot in a realistic, gritty style with a very mobile camera which defies description (a scene where the characters have dropped LSD and the whirling camera is used as a metaphor for their internal state is simply stunning.) It is exciting and innovative film making, and the director Marcel Gisler is one to watch for. This is a film I would go back to see over and over if it were ever to get a release here.

I finally got to see this film again on DVD in March, 2012; and the film has lost none of its power to shock and amaze. Twelve years have passed since I saw it, and still no other filmmaker has managed to make a gay themed dramatic film which so ardently and truthfully managed to capture the unvarnished essence of the sex, drugs and Gothic Rock gay culture of the '70s. This film might have been set in Switzerland; but it could have been set anywhere that gay people congregated in that pre-AIDS, post-Stones era. This film remains a milestone of the gay cinema and deserves its place in the canon.

I'm always in for a gay-themed movie, even if its story isn't all pink and peachy, but this one is really the rock-bottom of depressing. Both main characters are hard to relate to, being equally unsympathetic, and pictured as one-dimensional stereotypes: young and innocent Beni as a pathetic, gullible, brainless whining little goofus, and experienced Fögi as the quintessential narcissistic (of course addicted) hardrock-hero. The combination as such is already pretty unrealistic, and the way Fögi treats Beni, by turning him more or less into a crawling puppy, is completely over the top. There are other things that mar the credibility. Like where is Beni's family all this time? And could a popular hardrock-singer in the 70's really be so out and openly gay? Frédéric Andrau plays the egocentrical Fögi convincingly and is very attractive and sexy to boot. Vincent Branchet is just cute (literally as a puppy), but acts rather wooden and is mostly annoying.

Mandragora meets Switzerland. Amazing detail. Beautifully shot. Extremely complex sequences. Beautiful dialogues. Mesemrising moments. Truthful, yet incredibly depressing. That's what I'd add in a nutshell if you want to dig into this film's nightmares.

Beni's nightmare, that's it. We, who have seen this film, agree that it's a difficult and painful way to go to the end.

Despite its very Swiss environment, it's a film that would fit any time slot since the sixties. Strong and bitter. Sweet and hopeless. Definitely not an American film. Good actors, good script and a good director... all these factors make of F... one of those rare modern films that have it all.

Clearly, French input is all over this movie, and that's always a plus.

The music is another point to look for. Original music not to be found anywhere; a couple of Lou Reed's good songs and a heartbreaking end with Patti Smith's "Wings". Forget about the gay themed thing, this is a film to make you think, seriously!

I doubt anyone would endure just walking out as the credits roll.

I was so surprised to see this movie. How is it possible that a film like this is so unknown! The story brought me back to the time when I was 15 years old. I recognized so many things, feelings. Feelings of loving someone I admired, feelings that were confusing, sometimes despair, sometimes top of happiness. This films brings a lot of feelings to the surface and I am so happy that a director is possible to do this. The story is not commend, has great surprising moments. And the actors are awesome good. You understand I do not agree at all with the first review on this movie. But maybe he didn't live in 1973. This movie gives a insight if that time. A time I was 14/15 and a time that it was not bad that I liked a guy ten years older then myself. SEE THIS MOVIE! Love to you all Bert

From the storyline, this movie could be good, but it isn't. Fögi is pretty sexy, but Beni is such a sissy that you have in mind that the director had the sick idea to tweak a man-man relationship into a man-woman relationship. This is also obvious in the short sex scenes, where always Beni is lying on his belly and Fögi is on top of him, or in some other scenes where Beni acts like a housewife. Of course, there is the usual film drug-addicts stuff: Velvet Underground music, Andy Wharhol posters etc. The positive thing about this movie is that it's just a love drama with two men and not one of those films where this is made into something special, without any stereotype stuff like drag queens, strange bars etc.

Gay, straight--whatever, this is the film to see. The heaven and hell of love, and then an ending which stunningly melanges the two--Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Heard that before? And Beni transcends all. A real stunner...

This gay-friendly Swiss French film about a drugged-out punk singer who has an obsessive, dysfunctional affair with a 15-year-old boy groupie pushes the edge of the permissible and the believable and does not go anywhere but downhill, though it isn't without a certain sweetness. Deserves a tiny but special spot in the roster of drug and music films somewhere is a remote branch off from Velvet Goldmine and Sid and Nancy. More than that, it is courageous and tasteful in its straightforward and sexy treatment of man-boy love, and one can well understand that some viewers find it very special. Both of the principals are attractive, and Fögi may be a bastard, but he has a lot of charm as well.

Yes, Beni gets a target on, mostly, portrayal. Yes, Fogi is not bad either. Yes, we have some realistic scenes, especially the man-slave frustration ones, that means realistic like sentiments ringing true. Yes.

Yet, apart from the early scene when and where Beni discovers the heady spin an orgasm offers, which is rarely if at all represented on screen, the film is not memorable, and all those reviewers who profess the film's high value will be caught with the capital crime of idealizing, which is actually another name if you think about it, of frustrated citizenship. Well, no one escapes this predicament unfortunately, but wouldn't it be better to give a try directing these forces to better appreciations? For I cannot but think that judging by the majority of the reviewers' reactions this is one more case of frustrated gay citizenship meets failed artistic endeavor and masquerading both as the film's and the viewers' achieved meeting. Why?

Fogi is not a fag.

Fogi is not a frog.

Fogi is just a fog. -

With what frequency can you ask yourself the question of what do you know? Not frequently.