Guess who has been feeling sick?
Your friendly I-NEVER-GET-SICK-IN-THE-WINTER-GTFO blogger. That is, me. This means I've been spending a great deal of time reading, being miserable, not eating, being a bit more miserable, and watching movies. This means you get a shiny pseudo-review of a quirky gay film, aren't you happy? You should be. The last time you got one was Salomé.
Anyway, a while ago one of my friends got me into mubi. Back then, the movies you could stream on the site were very few and most were kind of terrible, but now you have several good ones. It's really cheap, too - about €4 for one movie, or €12 for unlimited monthly streaming. Oh, and if you enter the coupon code "popcorn" you get one free movie.
I had my eye on Sebastiane for a while (because the categories I lurk the most are "horror", "musicals", "gay and lesbian" and "road movies", not necessarily in this order). I'm not sure if I should have watched in on mubi - while I think it's the uncensored version, I think some things were cropped out.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
This movie is basically vaguely based on the story of St. Sebastian. I say vaguely, because most of the time you'll hear about Sebastian being sentenced to death by being used as a target in archery practice somewhere around the Palatine, or in the Circus Maximus. You'll also hear about him surving this ordeal and being nursed to health by St. Irene, only to openly challenge the Emperor and being clubbed (and then possibly decapitated) to death, and thrown in the Cloaca Maxima. There's more to this, and the most fascinating thing is that his existence is disputed to begin with. Nobody knows for sure if he exists or if he was made-up at some point. In this movie, however, when Diocletian finds out that his "favourite" (what this actually means is unclear, though some artists have interpreted this in a homoerotic context, see D'Annunzio) is actually a Christian he's simply sentenced to an exile of sorts. He's sent to The Middle of Nowhere with a small army group.
This "small army group" is mostly made-up of soldiers who act like 12 year old boys. I'm not kidding. They keep making jokes about sex, they get drunk, and they're incredibly gross. It's like what would happen if let several boys loose in the middle of the desert, with no Justin Bieber haircuts and things like wine or pornographic images of women. With soldiers like these, it's really no wonder that the Roman Empire even fell; it's obvious that they were too busy listening to Simple Plan. In the middle of nowhere.
The army group also consists of a... commander, I guess? who is really, really, really good-looking. Distractingly so. Maybe I'm just biased because I really like men with long-ish hair. I don't know. But really, this commander guy is very beautiful. He also falls in love with Sebastian, presumably because while he's the least attractive soldier in the group (with the exception of the guy-with-no-nose), he's the only one that acts like a regular person. They're also in the middle of nowhere, mind you.
The soldiers bully Sebastian and each other, and the commander also falls in love with Sebastian, who officially has a worse life than Malcom from Malcolm in the Middle. A lot of scenes feel, indeed, like they were taken from a bad pre-teen movie, probably one that was on Disney Channel on every slow hour ever. It's unfortunate, because it really takes a lot away from the tension between Sebastian and the commander once the action starts moving. It's very disruptive. I understand that these scenes were necessary for "compare and contrast" value, but towards the end they become downright unfortunate.
(Oh! There are also some very gratuitous scenes in slow motion, mostly about shirtless men and water. One of those times, there are two guys wrestling around in the puddle or something. This movie's score is by Brian Eno, by the way.)
The scenes with Sebastian and the commander* blew my mind, however. You can almost feel the tension between the two, as Sebastian tries to resist himself and the commander, who in turn aggressively pursues him and even tortures him. They made me uncomfortable, in a good way. They disturbed me. I really enjoyed these scenes, though the build-up was very much ruined by some of the scenes featuring the other soldiers. Not all, however: when they pass out drunk around the fire and the commander returns, quite intoxicated, to his room, there was an unsettling difference in tone. It's the difference between your friends who shitfacedly decide to take pictures they will forever regret, and the friends who go home after several drinks and think it's a brilliant idea to read dramatically the entirety of Anactoria, while crying over their unrequited (queer) love. Not that this has happened to me; I also don't have a recording of this event that is now in safe in Switzerland lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Anyway! This movie is entirely in Latin, which is very interesting. The Latin version is quite playful sometimes, such as when a dung beetle is named Maria Domus Alba. On the other hand, the English subtitles are awful - at some point, pedicare gets translated as meaning to make love, which is a rather... delicate way to put it. It sounds like a young, virginal, Christian lady made these wholesome subtitles. However, the discrepancies between the two can be quite an interesting experience that adds to the movie. I think that it's best enjoyed if you have some knowledge of Latin, however, and know your queer history also helps.
The main downside of the whole idea of making a movie entirely in Latin, is that many actors struggled with it. Not only did this mean cutting down and simplifying a few lines, apparently, but it also means having to deal with awkward accents. The acting feels very artificial at times, too - the mostly-amateur cast might have something to do with this. This isn't a bad thing, however, because if you're in the right mindset the artifical feel of this movie will feel positively decadent.
Visually, it's dry. In a good way. The beginning is quite over-the-top, but the scenes set in the middle of nowhere capture the brine and dust of the place, and the less-than-glamorous life of the soldiers stationed there. A review I read pointed out that this movie explores the undercurrent of camp present in Bible movies, and I'd say that's an accurate description. This movie evokes those endless movie sessions your family may have had around Easter time, but dresses it with homoeroticism and a dry sort of camp that relies more on sand and rags than glitter and perfume.
I really, really enjoyed Sebastiane. It's very different from what I expected it to be, but it blew my mind. It feel dry, hopeless, tense and poised, in the best way possible. It's uncomfortable, the way watching that movie about Ben Hur is uncomfortable (it's also less long and less boring). It has its problems, and it's not for everyone, but it's very captivating. I believe Des Esseintes would find it sufferable.
* I'm not sure if he's a commander, I don't know much about army ranks and it's a little too late to look it up without having to locate every single time I've used the word in this review, so I'll just openly point it out and apologize for being wrong.
(I'd like to note that I have not re-read this, so I'm sorry if there are lots and lots of typos. And have some gratuitous Momus in the title, for your trouble.)
P.S.: Lindsay Kemp!
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