Kampvuur

Campfire is basically a coming out story, but essentially it summarizes many itches of love and relations. Settings, sound, music are all economically used, but without being minimal and boring. Cinematography is brilliant, and so is acting. All in this is a short but not small, powerful but not cliché film. Simply beautiful.

Fascist-aesthetic gay film-making. The only people on screen are achingly beautiful in the body department, devoid of mind or personality otherwise. The protagonist undergoes a completely abstract (from history or social context) "coming out" experience at a Hitler-youth style scout camp, a story told in a highly developed cinematic language of intense furtive looks, meaningless cutaways to natural creatures, contrived "meaningful" silences and gliding tracking camera-work. The bodies of the actors are caressed and fetishised by the film to an absurd degree. The story, such as it is, would hardly be out of place in an episode of a teen soap.

The overall impression I got was of a self-consciously beautifully filmed artsy cinema aimed at middle-class gay consumers of "pink culture" who want to ogle men's bodies but don't have the courage of their convictions enough to just go out and buy a porno.

this seems be, at the first sigh, the theme of film. in fact, it is about the vulnerabilities of an age. about feelings, instinct, fear, social taboos, gestures and messages who are not always easy to assume. a campfire and a friendship. and an event who change everything. nothing new, in fact. but good opportunity to rediscover the importance of the girl in this genre of film.Circe Lethem does a beautiful job as Ineke and this is a real good point because she has the science to reflect the profound image of each of two guys. Joram Schurmans gives a fascinating Tijl who reminds the evolution of butterfly from silk cocoon. Koen Van Heule does the right portrait of vulnerability behind the perfect mask. a film about appearances. and, sure, about love as revelation of the truth image of the other.

Beautiful, brown-eyed Tijl has a crush on tall and Nordic Wout. While Tijl is the quiet, serious, sensitive one Wout is the clownish and uninhibited one who frequently acts without thinking. When Wout decides he's curious about boy on boy sex, he awakens in Tijl more than he counted on or wanted.

This is beautifully photographed short and accurately portrays the emotions it touches on. I just wish the story went on longer.

It's also interesting to see how the European teens in this reacted when compared to the way that American teens would react. It seems that our repressive pilgrim values still affect us today much more than they affect our European cousins.