The Male Gaze: Good Vibrations from NQV Media brings us seven stunning coming-of-age short films from Sweden, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Chile, and Poland that explore good vibrations, expectations, and excitations.
Brian Wilson famously wrote, “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations. She’s giving me excitations.” It’s a song about a young man attempting to connect with the romantic and sexual vibrations of a woman he is attracted to. We have all felt those vibrations at some point in our lives: a mysterious connection that can’t easily be explained, felt more than seen, with an intensity you can’t ignore. As we come of age and new experiences surround us, these romantic vibrations can take us by surprise, overwhelming us and even scaring us. The Male Gaze: Good Vibrations brings us seven stunning coming-of-age short films from Sweden, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Chile, and Poland that explore good vibrations, expectations, and excitations.
Shower Boys
Opening, The Male Gaze: Good Vibrations is Christian Zetterberg’s beautiful short story of a boy summoning the courage to ask another boy to dance: SLOWDANCE (Skoldiscot). During middle school, when we are on the verge of adolescence, our first attraction to someone else can feel monumental, uncertain, and often confusing. For gay and bi kids, who are just beginning to understand that their feelings differ from others, fear often surrounds first love. Fear of rejection, fear of aggression, fear of being bullied and fear of being labelled a queer. Those fears stop first love in its tracks, never allowing those important first, innocent expressions of love to take flight. But what if things were different?
Slowdance follows a young boy determined not to let fear cloud his first feelings of love and attraction for another boy at school. Summoning all his courage, he’s about to make his first move at the school dance, no matter what anyone else thinks. Zetterberg’s delightful short film captures the moment we know we must follow our heart, even if it is scary or uncertain. But it’s also about the creation of a level playing field for gay kids, as it proudly states that no kid should be forced to hide their first love or the first sparks of attraction due to fear. This theme runs through several short films in this collection, including our next short film, SHOWER BOYS, also directed by Christian Zetterberg.
Like Slowdance, Shower Boys is a delicate, beautiful, and powerful portrait of the innocence of early explorations of gender and sexuality. We meet twelve-year-old Viggo and Noel as they explore their sense of masculinity and innocently test the boundaries of male friendship after sports practice. The boys’ exploration of relationships, attraction and bodily development is completely innocent in nature; in fact, it’s the kind of encounter nearly all kids, whether gay, bi or straight, will have had at some point during their early teens. But Zetterberg is more interested in the adult reaction. As one of the boys’ parents finds them showering together in their shorts, his reaction is about to define how his son will view masculinity and male friendship for years to come, by adding a new emotion into the mix: shame.
Our third film is BREATH (Zucht), directed by Margien Rogaar. Sophie has been friends with Erik for a while, but she wants them to be more than friends as teenage emotions begin to take control. However, like many boys in their early teens, Erik is oblivious to the signals Sophie is sending. But a single day in early teen life can change everything, and a trip to the beach with Sophie and her dad is about to spark new, exciting feelings Erik isn’t prepared for. Rogaar’s beautifully shot and performed short is about the moment ‘attraction’ suddenly invades our lives, and the electric pulses it sends through us: pulses that excite but also feel uncertain and unsure as we attempt to respond to them. For Erik, a day at the beach will change his world forever and announce the arrival of the teenager he is about to become.
BREATH (Zucht)
Next, we travel to Lithuania for I WAS MAX (As buvau Maksas), directed by Lukas Kacinauskas. I spoke earlier about the fear of acting on feelings that most young gay or bisexual kids experience, leading them to close up and hide. But as they grow into older teens and young adults, feelings and desires can no longer be ignored, and for many gay and bisexual young people, the solution is to live two lives, one public and the other private. As Max arrives for a hook-up with Tadas, arranged online, he is living in two separate worlds, and as Tadas asks questions that test the boundaries between his created persona and his real life, those two worlds are about to collide.
Based on a story by Pedro Lemebel, our fifth film takes us to Chile in 1986, a year that marked a turning point in the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, with national protests, an assassination attempt, and brutal state repression. BLOKES, directed by Marialy Rivas, may, at first glance, seem like a classic gay coming-of-age flick about desire and discovery. But while it centres on these themes, as Luchito longs for the touch of his sexy neighbour Pedro, it is the historical backdrop that fuels Rivas’s short.
Santiago is a city where people disappear overnight, never to be seen again, and a place where embracing your sexuality could cost you your life. As his hormones run rampant, Luchito hasn’t yet realised that his desire for Pedro could carry devastating consequences. Full of desire, heat, and tension, Rivas’s choice of celluloid grain and texture adds further atmospheric layers to this powerful 15-minute short.
Turn It Around
We travel back to the Netherlands for our sixth short film, TURN IT AROUND, directed by Niels Bourgonje. If Slowdance was about a young boy on the verge of adolescence plucking up the courage to ask another boy for a dance, Turn It Around is about the moment two teenagers decide to come out in style at a house party with a passionate kiss.
When fifteen-year-old Bram meets Florian at a house party, he immediately falls for him in a big way, and a night where he thought he would once again hide his sexuality in front of friends suddenly becomes a night where the closet door is flung open, and the real Bram walks out. Beautifully performed and directed, Bourgonje’s short film is about the moment we realise we don’t want to hide anymore. Sometimes all it takes is a desire we can’t ignore, and good vibrations from someone we know will stand by our side and transform our world.
Our final short film in The Male Gaze: Good Vibrations is a rarity in NQV Media collections: a short situational comedy, STIMULANTS & EMPATHOGENS, directed by Mateusz Pacewicz. Straight-laced teen artist and musician Antek has a secret crush: the local drug dealer Kuba. It’s a crush that’s already cost him a lot of money, as he buys gear he has no intention of using, and as his parents head to a concert, another brief encounter with Kuba is on the cards. However, this time Kuba’s dad and brother are waiting in the car outside, believing this rich kid is buying their drugs only to deal at a higher price.
What starts as a drug deal where Antek gets his Kuba fix soon turns into a farce of epic proportions as desires are set free, Antek’s parents return early, and Kuba’s brother and father take matters into their own hands. Pacewicz’s high-energy situation comedy is a joy, as Antek and Kuba find love amid stimulants, empathogens, and a whole host of misunderstandings, confrontations and white lies.
Stream The Male Gaze: Good Vibrations now on Prime Video.
Related Posts
Follow Us