Saint-Narcisse

Well LaBruce has done it again. Another woeful tale which could have used a good rewrite. The actors do what they can and there are a couple of moments that could have been downright spooky, but the plot is so inane, it cannot suspend disbelief. Plotting is plodding and when at last, you glimpse the eyes of the statue, you just can't help but laugh.

Let me start by saying that I try to be kind in my reviews. I really do. This is not a kind review. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. Even before the plot line (which I'll get to), it's not good. The camerawork is choppy and uneven and the acting is either really good or really bad, but not consistent. The soundtrack has more of a horror vibe and I was never sure if characters were mentally ill or if it really was just super weird.

Now for the plot. This is something that looks like it was made to prove that gay people are mentally ill and are coming for everyone else. The end could've been an excellent point about recovering from religious trauma, but instead they went a whole other direction.

It's not even so bad it's good. It's just bad.

The queer artist Bruce LaBruce has done some entertainment films like The Raspberry Reich, and his movies are often kind of camp where he mixes classical film stereotypes with clichés from gay porn. This film is camp as well, but it feels like it was not intentional. Cause I think that we are supposed to take this story seriously. It feels like an attempt to look cinematic where the director tries to frame the pictures perfectly but doesn't manage to do this as the way it was intended. The script could need an extra rewrite, and I like the promise of the twin brother who meets and catch desire for each other and the mythology of Narcissus.

The movie's sound is kind of a disaster, they seem to have dubbed several scenes after, especially scenes outside, and they sound like they are in a basement, and there is zero engagement in the tones from the actors. Also, the sound effects sound like they are picked from an old cartoon, which isn't helping if the intention was to make the film feel serious.

The material the actors have to work with is not great, but it isn't helping that they are not the best actors either. A great actor can deliver even if they are working with a script that isn't that good.

This film has been described as being controversial, my biggest issue was to keep my focus on the film, and I was checking my watch to see how long that was left. Bruce LaBruce might be relevant two decades ago and have been essential for the queer art cinema, but this film shows that he has stagnation in his artwork, and it hasn't been any progress since then. Luckily it has been for queer cinema as a whole, so there are much better films to watch today.

The nature seems be the main virtue of this film. Far to be a bad one, it seems too ambitious, reuniting, mixing different themes in eccentric manner, offering a ball of cliches and eccentric fantasies, suggesting improvisation and exploring, in not the most smart manner, old cliches, from Narcisse to Saint Sebastian significance in gay sub culture.

Sure, beautiful details, nice references to classic stories, not uninspired - forced in few scenes - links between erotic and horror. And, no doubts, interesting work of Tania Kontoyanni, not bad try to define his characters - and the seductive body - of Felix Antoine Duval.

So, I admitt, it is not fair or easy to be very critic about this film for me. Sure, not perfect, not brilliant acting but, as admirer of Gothic culture - the thoughts about The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis are the first- , Saint Narcisse is more than decent.

I was actually surprised by Saint-Narcisse. Having seen other films by this director I was expecting something more transgressive, although it seems that other reviewers were offended by the frankly mild content in this particular film (don't watch Hustler White if you can't take Saint-Narcisse). The film certainly attempts to draw your eye with the cinematography and the curated images, for example of Beatrice teasing her son's hair from the comb he used out of longing after he's left. Sometimes directors pay closer attention to the cinematography when they recognize that the plot is a little thin or progresses slowly, or they otherwise have some issue with the narrative, but whatever the case is it works in this film.

I think the casting was perfect and the actors really sold this film although there is an issue with the dialogue being often stilted and unnatural, which is presumably due to the actors being French-speaking and the film is in English. Frankly, Saint-Narcisse is more of an art film and if you're expecting explosions or a homicide in the first five minutes you'll be disappointed. Essentially this is a film about a young man who reconnects with the mother who abandoned him when he was very young. The young man also comes across his doppelganger in the form of a monk at a local monastery. The film is imperfect like everything is and it stumbles into David DeCouteau territory in the second half, but I found it visually compelling and I daresay more sedate than other offerings from this director. Sedate but not joyless. 8/10.