MOVIE
REVIEW: “Just a Question of Love” /(Juste une question d'amour')(French/Hamster France2 TV, 1999).
Released in North America by Picture This! Home Video, May, 2005.
Although it may seem unfair to use a brief (88 minutes) independently made-for-TV French film to bear the many topics brought forth in this review, there are several standout issues that may be explored in viewing this exquisite and exceptional work of cinema by Christian Fauré that are worthy of special focus for GLBT viewers.
First, make no mistake. “Just a Question of Love” is above everything else, a real love story. Yea! Finally! Despite the agonizing conflicts within families and even the painful dispute between the two gay heroes that threatens their ultimate happiness, there is no doubt that this is truly a love story and a very beautiful one at that.
The two gay men who are central to the film, the college of agricultural senior student Laurent (Cyrille Thouvenin) and Cédric (Stéphan Guérin-Tillié) the openly gay nursery owner with whom he has been assigned a last-chance internship, undeniably become lovers. “Just a Question of Love” is a gloriously romantic story that reveals two men falling deeply and desperately in love. The actors convey the intensity of their growing love with astonishing reality. Whether the actors are gay in real life or not seems completely insignificant. On the screen, these actors are passionate lovers. Observe and take pleasure in the rush of delight they experience as they make eye contact and witness the electric sparks that fly between them when they look at one another with both love and desire.
Consider the evidence of blooming love in the simple yet intimate ways they have of touching. There is an absolute lack of awkwardness of being in each other’s presence and exhibiting just how jubilantly they love each other. View the love-bound humor and the fresh amusement these gay men find in simple, yet significant love signals such as sharing their abundant joy in an endearing and playful water fight. These men may well be straight and may be acting together for the first time, but there is no denying that on the screen they are convincingly passionate lovers.
“Just a Question of Love” is far more than a date movie. It is a commitment movie. “I promise this same kind of love, day after day, for the rest of our lives, gay guy “A” whispers (or shouts with joy) to gay guy “B” as they watch Laurent and Cédric fall helplessly into each other’s arms.
This incredible demonstration of realistic gay love brings forth the first issue. “Just a Question of Love” begs a question. Why are French directors and actors so exceptionally successful as filmmakers of gay love stories? There is nothing pornographic about the film, but the first kissing scene alone is so real and convincing to viewers that it becomes more erotically charged and sexually exciting to view than explicitly filmed, fully-nude sexual intercourse in other European and North American films. These gay men kissing are profoundly convincing of their shared realization that they are in love.
French film directors such as Christian Fauré with “Just a Question Of Love” and other gay French cinema masterpieces such as Andre Techine’s “Wild Reeds (Ima Films, 1994) and the more recent films, “The Man I Love” by Stephane Giusti (Le Sept Arte, 1997) and “Come Undone” by Sébastien Lifshitz (Arte France Cinema, 2000) manage to make seemingly innocent gay love scenes not only amazingly erotic, but also appear to be so very truthful.
Even the steamiest and overt sex scenes in gay films from other nations too often appear forced and awkward as if the actors and directors appear to believe that it is a really big deal just for two straight actors playing gay men to kiss, let alone (God forbid!) actually touch each other casually and with joyful abandon, or allow their eyes to meet sending forth undeniably loving messages as well as genuine sparks of intimate sensuality.
One does not know if it is great direction or simply superb acting, but French actors portray gay love more intimately, honestly and comfortably than actors of any other nation regardless of whatever their own sexual identity may be. They portray gay men more naturally and in more sexual unambiguous manners than film performers from any other nation. In the case of “Just a Question of Love,” Laurent and Cédric are incapable of keeping their eyes or their hands off one another. Even a glance at a lover from across the room appears more erotic than full-frontal nudity or graphic scenes of sexual intercourse in non-French gay-theme cinema.
It may require the viewing a small miracle of a film such as “Just a Question of Love” to cause viewers to pause and realize how contrived and awkward such scenes far too often appear in inferior gay love stories filmed in the North America and elsewhere.
A particular case in point. On the morning after the two lovers have obviously made love (never shown on screen), the tenderness between them in the form of their gentle touches and eye contact are wonders to behold. It is what critics of magnificent straight movie love scenes call “great chemistry” between the actors. A blissfully exhausted Cédric lazily throws his arm across the chest of Laurent as if their night in bed had been their hundredth time rather than the first. These are not men who are ashamed of their love, their bodies, or the sex they have obviously found to be so close to pure ecstasy.
As an aside, to demonstrate how gay-friendly French cinema truly is, Cyrille Thouvenin -- the star of “Just a Question of Love” -- received a CESAR nomination (the French equivalent of an Academy Award) in the category: “Most Promising Young Actor for Confusion of Genders.” One can just imagine Mel Gibson or Brad Pitt presenting the same award at the Hollywood Oscars!
A second notable feature of “Just a Question of Love” is the combined impact of the lovely scenery and the first-rate cinematography that is often as refreshing and purely lovely as the first bloom of love that is the story’s theme. The setting of the meeting and falling in love of the two gay men takes place in the gardens of a nursery bursting forth with flowers of every color, especially red, and green houses overflowing with verdant green plant life. Each garden scene visually affirms life and love. (How could gay love do anything but succeed in such an Eden?) Without ever hitting the viewer over the head, hollering, “don’t miss my symbolism!” the thriving green in the natural and glasshouse environments virtually spells “Gay Love = New Life.” Roses have rarely been filmed as lovingly or have so richly represented the love between two men.
Just as the color yellow saturated “The Man I Love” so much that it seemed to become a character in the film itself, luscious reds and myriad shades of greens make “Just a Question of Love” also ravishing to view.
The third observation “Just a Question of Love” brings forth is considerably less joyful. Viewers of films such as the those mentioned herein and a legion of others have given North American viewers (at least) the impression that the French are far more tolerant of homosexuality than people of most other countries. Unfortunately, that may be true in Cannes, Nice, and Paris, but it is clearly not the case in the small provincial town environment where Laurent has spent most of his life, and therein lies the major conflict of this special story of love.
The intelligent, well-educated parents and close relatives of Laurent -- most especially his aunt and uncle – are more homophobic than even most average American appear to be. This highly pronounced, virtually trumpeted gay hatred– is central to the plot and is sadly probably an honest reflection of French smaller town beliefs, but it is nonetheless, infuriating, heartless, and exasperating all at once.
Laurent is the son and only child of middle class French parents who passionately adore him. This is especially true of his mother Jeanne (Danièle Denie) who was 38 when Laurent was miraculously conceived and born. He clearly loves both his parents in return. While his pharmacist father would prefer a higher calling for his son than becoming an agricultural engineer – a glorified gardener – both parents fully support Laurent and embrace what they assume is a loving relationship with Carole, Laurent’s roommate, classmate, fellow worker, and best friend. Carole (Carolyn Veyt with her Grace Kelly beauty giving a richly layered performance) appears to be in love with Laurent herself, but is resigned to his being gay and further serves as his “cover” at many family gatherings. She is warmly embraced in particular by Laurent’s parents as the ideal future daughter-in-law in the deception the two young people perpetuate.
But, there is a dark side to Laurent’s larger, seemingly loving family. At one point he even refers to his family as “the perfect family, the perfect killers. No one even knows where the body is hidden.”
A year previously, his slightly older cousin and closest friend, Eric, who was gay came out to his parents who immediately disowned him. Even as he was in the hospital dying from acute hepatitis, Eric’s parents refused to visit their only son. They even refused to believe the truth that he contracted acute hepatitis on a vacation in Thailand. Having abandoned him because he came out to them, it easier for them to believe he died of AIDS and deserved such a fate. Although Laurent deeply loves his own parents, he is contemptuous of them because they followed the path of Eric’s parents and refused to take Eric into their home or even visit him in the hospital.
Laurent is the only member of his family who was loyal to his doomed cousin throughout his illness and death. His boiling anger mixed with fear of self-revelation has caused him to perform so badly at college that he is on the verge of being dismissed. The plot then comes full circle. As a final chance to receive a college degree that will determine his entire future, a last life-line is offered in the form of a horticulture internship with the handsome Cédric.
Cédric’s approach to being gay is the complete opposite of Laurent’s. While Laurent lives a double life, hiding behind the ruse of Carole being his future bride at family gatherings, Cédric, a decade earlier confronted his mother, Emma (marvelously portrayed by Eva Darlan) on the day they buried his father and her husband that he was gay and she had two choices -- accept him as a gay man or lose him forever. She made the only choice she could; somewhat resigned, she realized she could not lose both her husband and her son. Just as Laurent’s mother, she passionately loves her only child.
Cédric, perhaps half a decade older than Laurent, is totally honest with everyone about his sexuality and refuses to allow culture or society to dictate his life. The altar of public acceptance means nothing to him.
He has remained loving and true to his mother, Eva, and has taken on the responsibilities of both the nursery and a state-sponsored agricultural science project to bring additional and needed money into the family’s business (that coincidentally brings Laurent to the nursery).
The climax of this heart-felt love story is that the openly gay and proud man Cédric
makes his love affair with Laurent conditional upon the latter finally admitting the truth of his sexuality to his family.
Laurent is haunted by the terrible treatment his beloved cousin Eric received from their supposing loving families, the duplicity he and Carole have carried on with his family, and most especially his intense desire and love for Cédric. His world appears to be collapsing in upon him with no escape route save perhaps for the oblivion of disappearing to Paris and cutting off all ties with everyone he loves. He is hopelessly lost in the conflicting loyalty and great love of his mother and father and his simultaneously total love of and infatuation for Cédric.
Laurent deeply loves his parents but he fears the exact same treatment Eric endured will be his fate as well if he comes out of the closet and introduces Cédric to his parents as his lover. The surprising homophobia strongly emphasized in the film seems incredibly senseless. How can otherwise decent people, who intensely believe that God blessed them with children, turn their backs on these same children, even to the degree of wishing them dead?
One of the strengths of this exquisite movie is the portrayal of the explosive and painful emotions of all the characters. It will be a shame that the audience for “Just a Question of Love” will be gay men primarily. The film is a wonderfully many-sided examination of all the people, gay and straight, whose lives are touched by the love that grows between Laurent and Cédric as well as by the life and death of Marc.
(Indeed, one of the surprises of the film is the revelation of Laurent’s homosexuality to his stunned parents. The film would be a great catalyst for PFLAG viewing and discussion, for example, or the same in a religious group discussing issues surrounding parenting gay children, gay love, and gay marriage. Laurent’s mother believes he was a miracle, yet she and her husband are ready to disown and throw away forever the wonder God gave to them. Surely, that is a topic for open-minded people of faith to talk about and consider.)
Yet one more matter provoked by “Juste une question d'amour” should concern every American citizen who views it. Amazingly, this rapturous gay love story was originally filmed for French TV. Would PBS make such an affirmative gay love story for national broadcasting in 2005? Imagine the reaction of Focus on the Family, the current president, and congress in the USA if PBS would courageously do just that. The very fact that such a beautiful and affirming story about gay love was televised in France should perhaps truly frighten Americans. Are there any First Amendment rights left? Does PBS have to pander to the tastes of the Christian Right and fanatical religious fundamentalists in order to survive? Is there any artistic freedom left in the United States? Really brave American patriots should be asking (and demanding answers) to these questions: When and Why and How did the Bill of Rights die?
A final caution and salute. Viewers should not allow such political questions spoil the viewing of this exceptional gay love story. “Just a Question of Love” is a film of superb direction, splendid scenery and great beauty, exceptional performances, and above all else, a deeply moving and very rare love story.
Jerry Flack
Denver, Colorado