L'Heure bleue

"Die Blaue Stunde" is a staple in my video collection, and one to which I return agein and again to enjoy. With each viewing I find myself engrossed in the subject matter, the work of the actors, and the deliberately sparse, clean style of the director. The film is small, intimate, and modest; happily, it doesn't pretend to be anything else. It is honest, straight-forward, and has an authentic feel throughout. Andreas Herder as Theo and Dina Leipzig as Marie are very touching in depicting the lonliness and lack of direction in lives as they reach out in vain for fulfillment. Their characters emerge as universal, crossing language barriers to move us, regardless of our particular cultural environment. Even the music, often a sole piano playing sparse notes in the upper register, points up the intimate nature of the drama, well shot in semi-documentary style.

It's obvious from this and many others that the Europeans far outshine Americans in their honest portrayal of gay life. This film is so far superior to such trash as 'Johns' on the same subject matter, I feel guilty even mentioning them in the same sentence. The latest pathetic trend seems to be the gay sitcom syndrome (i.e. 'In and Out' and 'Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss'). Anyway, see this movie. The acting, direction and writing are all superb.

After seeing a bunch of films where hustlers are posed as very aggressive people, it's a relief to see one where kindness is much more part of the personality of Theo (Andreas Herder) the main character in the movie. What doesn't mean that the world is kind to him. In fact, his clients are very distasteful people, using him as some dis-chargeable thing, where no connection is possible beyond sex. And that's what he finds in his neighbor, a much suffering lady in her late thirties with a husband no one should deserve. They become friends, and even go to bed together. But some predictable twists are still to happen. All in all, it's a film I would recommend for a day when you're so well with yourself that seeing a sad film won't make you depressive, just feel empathy for a class of workers so badly threaten by life, which deserve respect. After all, they do have their social function.

A nicely-done character study of a beautiful twenty-something male call boy, and his friendship with his next door neighbor, an older woman in an unhappy relationship with a would-be writer. How they come together for a brief time is believable and oddly touching. The two leads are excellent. 8/10