Gerontophilia

"Gerontophilia" was a very difficult film for me to watch and I am sure it would be for most viewers. This isn't a criticism--just a statement about the sort of topics you'll see addressed in this odd film. It's very challenging and isn't the sort of movie I could strongly recommend nor is it something for kids, but it is worth seeing if you are a patient sort of person and don't mind being shocked.

This Canadian film is a creepy story about a young man who works with the elderly. Why is it creepy? Well, over time Lake finds that he's become sexually attracted towards some of the elderly men in his care...and this isn't really the creepy part. However, his interest soon goes far beyond a passing fancy. Lake begins to not only fantasize about them sexually but even peeks at a naked man while he's sleeping and he pleasures himself while doing so. Clearly, this is NOT just about sexual attraction but crosses over the border...a very uncomfortable one indeed. After all, even if his love interest were younger or a woman, such behavior would most likely get Lake arrested! Fortunately, the film doesn't dwell on this too long...but I am sure that many viewers will be turned off by this. It's a shame really, as the film seemed to have too many interesting ideas but all together it just made the film confusing. In other words, having a young guy fall in love with an elderly person (male or female) could have been very good in a film that isn't a comedy like Harold and Maude. After all, while a taboo, what is wrong with a May-December romance? Most films that broach the topic give us the message that the younger partner must be a woman, so it is nice for a young guy to fall in love with an elderly person in a movie. But the film goes far beyond just love...and that is what is troubling.

The bottom line is that while I did think the plot was overly complicated and muddled by Lake being what many would consider a sex offender at the nursing home, the film dares to be different. More importantly, however, the film has some excellent things going for it. The music is just terrific and really works well with the movie. The directing (aside from a bad edit where Lake inexplicably changes sides of the bed in the same scene without getting up) is also very sweet and deliberate. I'd really like to see more from the director and I wouldn't object to a gay or gerontological theme- -just not these AND a creepy guy who goes way beyond friendship or even love.

This film was so much better than I expected! I saw this at the SF Gay Film Festival tonight. Just hearing the premise, I couldn't imagine it being very realistic but it turned out to be completely believable to me. The young actor was so sweet and his affection/attraction to the older man seemed quite sincere. I could see Mr. Peabody through his eyes and see the beauty and fascination he felt, particularly through the drawings he made and the huge poster of Gandhi on his bedroom wall.

I was impressed by the convincing portrait of teenage rebellion portrayed by the young girl who is inspired by female revolutionaries throughout history and by the young man's ridiculous jealousy and drug/alcohol use while at the same time showing the reality of the older man's life. Mr. Peabody was excellent in his portrayal of an older man who is at first resigned to life in the nursing home and then perks up when he realizes this young man is interested in him. He shows how lively he can be once he is encouraged to be his full self.

This film has changed the way I think of older men in nursing homes....

Despite its subject matter, 'Gerontophilia' could mark Bruce La Bruce's entry into polite film-making society: in contrast to his earlier works such as 'Raspberry Reich' and 'Skin Gang' it is possibly his most accessible work to date.

Lake (no really), a young man in his late teens/early twenties, gets a job in an old people's home. This is close to being all his Christmases rolled into one, because Lake is turned on by the elderly. He becomes especially close - in more ways than one - to 81 year-old Melvyn (when a nurse describes Melvyn as being 'a very sick man' one might think as this is a La Bruce film that's to be expected, but she actually means he is very ill. I think.) Melvyn wants to see the Pacific Ocean one last time before he dies, and Lake tries to make his dream come true. But how will Melvyn fare outside the controlled environment of the home?

In terms of storyline, this is an interesting film, told in a linear, non-confusing fashion. And the acting is acceptable: if Pier-Gabriel Lajoie, as Lake, is a little stilted when speaking in English he's a lot more natural in his (I assume native) French; and Walter Borden, as the elderly homosexual, keeps the queeniness on a subtle, unembarrassing level. But let's be honest: what attracts a lot of people to La Bruce films is the promise of nudity: although a lot of it is cinema of the grotesque, there'll usually be some young, firm flesh on display. But there's precious little of it in this film: the very handsome Lajoie provides just one quick shot of his bare backside (and it seems unlikely the full-frontal shots of Borden will excite anyone except, y'know, gerontophiles). So while this may bring La Bruce to the attention of a whole new audience, his old fans may miss the chaotic nature of his previous films, as well as the flesh.

I think it helps a lot to be an old man to fully appreciate "Gerontophilia" in all its affective and humane dimension. In a condition as old age, in which we become invisible (something Mr. Peabody expresses in one scene), if invisibility does have its advantages at times, in others it becomes very dramatic because our dilemmas seem to have no space in the young people's perception and, as the evaluation given to this motion picture demonstrates, they only perceive half of its implications. A lovely little movie, maybe quite necessary, in which a young Canadian man who works in a geriatric clinic discovers his attraction to very old men and that it is not only a sexual attraction, but that he is capable of feeling love for them. A rarity in audiovisual production from all over the world and a highly welcome one.

There are precious few good gay films. It's just a fact. Usually the few good ones are foreign so this is disappointing because it was Canadian but that is almost American so there you go. Dialogue is stilted and script is formulaic. Actors try but plod along with material inferior that they attempt to embroider with a lifted brow here and there or a sad eye. The male star is pretty so he's a diversion but after the first swimming pool scene, you're ready to switch to reruns of 'Dark Shadows' TV show. Is it really believable that a very handsome young gay man would be smitten and erotically motivated by sagging flesh, wrinkles, fallen posteriors and pot bellies? I know it might exist (just like chubby chasers) but I find it difficult to swallow. It is very nice to fantasize about by someone like myself who am 65 and counting now and would like to justify still going to the gym, but...