Co-written with Matthew Francis, Ryan Nordin’s Scraps is a delicate and beautifully shot exploration of first love and the tentative steps LGBTQ+ young people take in exploring their feelings and emotions with someone who may or may not reciprocate their emerging love. Scraps is showing at Dances with Films on June 27 and is screened in partnership with Outfest.
Do you remember your first love? I am not talking about the countless celebrity crushes you kept secret or the people who sparked new sexual desires. I am talking about the first person who seemed to understand you fully, made you feel safe no matter what, and made you feel loved and whole. That person felt like destiny, your meeting written in the stars. If it was your first love, that person has become immortal in your memory and frozen in time at the exact point you met them. Forever young and forever untouched by the passing of time.
But imagine if you didn’t know whether that love was possible, and testing that love came with the risk of rejection and isolation. So many young gay people miss out on their first love due to nerves, pressure and the uncertainty of what will happen if they test their feelings. In his beautifully shot, grainy celluloid homage to movies such as Mid90s, My Own Private Idaho, and Jongens, director Ryan Nordin’s Scraps explores the power of first gay love, the uncertainty of the emotions attached when neither boy is “out”, and the oppressive heteronormativity of small-town life for teens who don’t quite fit the “accepted mould.”
The year is 2003, and the place is a small Montana town where the skatepark and the burger joint sit at the heart of youth culture. Gus (the brilliant Peder Lindell) has just moved to the town to spend the summer working at his Uncle’s carpentry shop before heading to art school in the fall. Gus is quiet and shy as he watches the alpha male skateboarders from a distance, his homemade and painted skateboard in his hands. But when a confident and outgoing guy from the pack introduces himself, Gus’s world suddenly changes.
Bridger (the fantastic Dorian Giordano) is impressed by Gus’s homemade board and promises to teach him how to use it, while Gus promises to teach Bridger how to make his own skateboard. Soon, a new friendship flourishes, but Gus can’t help but wish it were something more. But how is he supposed to know how Bridger feels when he can’t be open about how he feels? In a beautiful homage to Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, a late-night discussion between both boys in front of a bonfire may hold the answers Gus seeks.
Co-written with Matthew Francis, Ryan Nordin’s Scraps is a delicate and beautifully shot exploration of first love and the tentative steps LGBTQ+ young people take in exploring their feelings and emotions with someone who may or may not reciprocate their emerging love. But it is also an exploration of the restrictions small-town life places on LGBTQ+ young people as they find themselves and begin to explore their sexuality. Nordin makes the brave decision to end his short film on a cliffhanger, leaving us to imagine how Gus and Bridger’s night in front of the fire came to a close. Did they cement their emerging love with a nervous kiss? I like to think so because this pair of boarding buddies deserves a happy ending.
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