Passer les champs

A film about brotherhood. And only about brotherhood because, except this "territory", the film works not very well. Decent performances, nice story and the temptation to be a manifesto. A teenager , his not real inspired date with an older man, moralistic sense of dialogue and beautiful cinematography. And, maybe, in large lines and high perspective, nothing more. Touching, no doubts , but not convincing.

This is a reasonably well acted short film about two handsome brothers living with their parents in the French countryside. The youngest is gay, the older one straight but they are very close and protective. Having an enquiring mind I wondered how ' straight ' the elder brother was but I chastised myself for naughty thoughts. The younger needs what is coyly called affection, and being seventeen he longs to make an online connection with a man ' around ' thirty. Of course of his own volition he meets the ' ageing ' predatory man in a sort of hotel and well, use your imagination. He calls his brother, who rushes to get the nasty wolf who has been very bad indeed. Hysterical shouting follows, and end of spoilers. All this seemed like a warning film from the 1950's about how teenagers must not, and definitely not go with predators. The ending seemed to lack something. I just wondered if older brother would hover over him for life!! Beautifully filmed though this film is and handsome though the two brothers were I just wondered why they were so good looking ? Couldn't they have been more ' ordinary ' as most people are ? Good looks become too much of a cliched look in gay genre films.

Lucas and Theo live in the countryside in France. Theirs is a closed set consisting of friends at a local football club. Theo knows he's gay and has accepted it but he wants a connection. For a while it looks as if team member Nathan might be the one but he bottles out and stays unhappily in the closet.

Theo makes a disastrous choice to meet an older man visiting the nearest town who gets him drunk and roughs him up. Lucas takes him home and on the way they talk about their futures. It's clear that one of them wants to spread his wings and soon. And one will remain.

This was a nice little story that deserved a look on a slow afternoon.