F. est un salaud

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.

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

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.

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.

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...