From a telephone hookup that leads to a painful awakening in 1992, to a trip to Morocco in search of a distant memory and a young man questioning his beliefs, NQV Media’s The Male Gaze: Goodbye Love is a powerful exploration of the reality that life is full of endings and beginnings.
Our lives are full of hellos and goodbyes; in fact, the one certainty in this life is that we must all eventually say goodbye. Goodbyes can be painful, abrupt, or never truly conclude as people slip from our lives without a word, and this reality sits at the heart of NQV Media’s latest collection of touching, tender yet powerful short films, The Male Gaze: Goodbye Love. From a telephone hookup that leads to a painful awakening in 1992 to a trip to Morocco in search of a distant memory, and a young man questioning his beliefs, Goodbye Love offers an eclectic mix of shorts that powerfully explore endings and beginnings.
The Male Gaze: Goodbye Love opens with Maxence Ouvrard’s The Apocalypse Will Not Happen (L’apocalypse n’aura pas lieu). Timothée has long placed all his beliefs in Jehovah, dedicating his life to the religion he was born into, but lately doubts have begun to creep in. These doubts grow stronger when his best friend is excommunicated, with no reason given for his expulsion.
Then there’s the older man he visits regularly, his home a treasure trove of literature and music. He always welcomes Timothée in and enjoys debating the pamphlets he brings, yet Timothée also knows the church would likely reject him. As Timothée internally debates his future and his own wants and desires, from education to community and literature, a stark choice faces him: accept his subservience to his mother’s wishes and the church he has called home since his birth, or step into the outside world and leave behind everything he knows.
THE APOCALYPSE WILL NOT HAPPEN
Ouvrard’s powerful exploration of religious fundamentalism and control versus the need to find one’s own path is held aloft by the brilliant central performance of Nicolas Bauwens, who many will remember from Christophe Charrier’s I am Jonas and François Ozon’s By the Grace of God. Bauwens beautifully explores the fear of turning one’s back on all they have known, and the emotional complexity of facing that decision, knowing his mother’s love rests purely on his continued devotion, not his happiness. Add a strong ensemble, including Anne-Hélène Orvelin and Pierre Aussedat, and The Apocalypse Will Not Happen offers compelling, disturbing insight into community and family control, and the power of many religions to entrap rather than care for the young people in their flock.
Next in the collection is Marie Rosselet-Ruiz’s delicate and tender exploration of grief, Clear Sky. Grief carries a power many of us are unprepared for, and for French Paratrooper Jérémy, it has taken control of his life, his dreams, and his ability to function on his return from active service. Sofiane, a fellow paratrooper, was far more than a friend and a brother in arms; he was the glue that held Jérémy’s world together, and now he is gone. Suddenly, the world feels dark, the future unnavigable, and the force he dedicated his life to feels incomplete. But dawn always follows the darkest nights, even when that night seems to stretch into infinity.
The final days of a parent’s time with us sit at the heart of our next short film, Lucas Gloppe’s powerful drama Mardochi. The death of a parent is something we all must face, and with it comes a finality to the family life we once enjoyed that can be unimaginably painful. We often find ourselves wishing we had asked our parents more when they were alive, as a huge hole is left behind that none of us ever really manage to fill.
Vincent’s father is in hospital, and he and his brothers know they don’t have much time, so Vincent travels to Rabat, Morocco, to search for the home his father had to leave when the nation gained independence. His father wants to see that home one more time, for he never truly left it, even though France became his home in exile and the place where he raised his family.
MARDOCHI
However, when Vincent arrives at his father’s childhood home, an empty plot of rubble sits where the home once stood. Vincent makes his way back, wondering what he will tell his ailing dad as he reaches his hospital bed, but delays scupper his arrival. As he waits, an encounter with a young Moroccan student, Ahmed, changes his course, giving him the breathing space to consider the forced journey his father took and the importance of his own heritage.
When Vincent arrives at his father’s bed, he finally understands the importance of that childhood home and the pain of leaving it behind. Gloppe’s beautifully performed and written short film is about the history that makes our parents who they are, and the importance of embracing and understanding that history while they are still here.
The final film in The Male Gaze: Goodbye Love explores the waves that flow from our connections with others, even if we may not initially see that connection as life-changing. Frédéric Lavigne’s Lost Hearts (Coeurs perdus) is a heartbreaking journey into the secrecy many gay and bisexual men lived with in the 1990s, and the powerful effects of that secrecy on them and those they chose to meet.
Opening in Paris in 1992, Julien, a young science student, busily conducts his experiments in a lab before pausing to pick up the phone. It’s been a month or so since he spoke to a young hairdresser named Christophe, with whom he had a brief and passionate sexual relationship following a meeting on a gay phoneline. But when Julien calls the hairdressers where Christophe worked, he’s met with a wall of silence before the owner tells him Christophe is dead.
As Julien tries to process this shocking news, we journey back to their first phone call, their tender first meeting, and their final heated night of discovery at Christophe’s house. Soon it becomes clear that while for Julien, Christophe was a fun sexual adventure as he explored his bisexuality, the same could not be said for Christophe, who longed for a connection as he battled depression, loneliness and something more. On visiting the hairdressers where Christophe works, Julien is about to discover that the waves of their brief connection are still advancing, and they are about to sweep him up in their unstoppable force.
Anyone who was a gay teenager or young man in the 1990s will immediately relate to Lavigne’s tender and haunting short film, held aloft by the powerhouse performances of Guillaume Soubeyran and Isaak Dessaux. For many of us, gay sex was kept in the shadows, our meetings, whether from cruising, Gay Times personal ads or expensive phonelines, shrouded in secrecy as we attempted to live two lives, one public and the other private.
When we did meet someone, we briefly felt free, yet we also feared the intensity of that feeling, often choosing to distance ourselves quickly and return to the shadows. As a result, we never knew anything about the men or boys we met beyond their bodies and a few fleeting conversations, often leaving both them and us at risk. Lost Hearts beautifully and powerfully reflects those feelings, fears and desires as Julien looks back and then forward in an attempt to understand and forgive.
The Male Gaze: Goodbye Love is now available to stream or buy.
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