Filmes de Interés Gay

" . . at once spiritual,
sadomasochistic, homoerotic,
and heartrendingly
tender . . "

Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress created a remarkably authentic historical film, and a landmark of gay cinema, about the martyred fourth century Roman soldier, who was later both canonized as Saint Sebastian and revered as an enduring gay icon. The film strikingly balances a cinéma vérité depiction of the everyday life of common soldiers, in a remote desert outpost of the Roman Empire, and a visionary exploration of one man's defiant growth in faith, even as it subtly questions the nature of that experience.

Sebastiane works brilliantly on many levels – cinematic, psychological, spiritual, aesthetic, even political – but what may strike you first is the vividness of the ancient world it depicts, captured with an authenticity matched by few films.

From stills, you might think that Sebastiane's cast was chosen for their sculpted bodies. But each of these actors, even those in supporting roles, fully inhabits their characters and brings them to life. Leonardo Treviglio (seen most recently in Julie Taymor's 1999 film, Titus) gives an intensely restrained, brilliantly nuanced performance in the title role. Neil Kennedy as Max (a year later he played another memorable character with that same name in Jarman's Jubilee) brings a twisted comic energy to his role as the troublemaker extraordinaire. And Barney James, whose only other film role was as the policeman in Jubilee, creates a genuinely complex antagonist in his Captain Severus, smitten with Sebastian and torn between lust, duty, and love.

Shot on location in Sardinia, every well-worn costume and dusty prop seems genuine. The dialogue is in the rough "street Latin" of its day (with English subtitles), but rather than feeling gimmicky it helps capture the texture of these nine banished soldiers' daily life. Its realism is in striking contrast to big-budget "sword and sandal" epics, from the Silent Era to the recent Gladiator, which always look too manufactured. In fact, its stylistic roots are more in the hyper-real mythic films of Pasolini, like Oedipus Rex and Medea.

" . .a society where gay and bisexual people were part of the accepted norm . ."

These nine exiled soldiers speak the earthy "dog Latin" of that time with total believability (there are English subtitles; classics scholar Jack Welch translated Jarman and Humfress's original script). Rather than a gimmick, this ancient "street talk" helps capture the texture of their rough daily life in some godforsaken outpost of the Empire. We see just the kind of loose camaraderie you would expect under the circumstances – merciless ribbing of each other, some literally painful practical jokes, constant questioning of each other's manhood (although somewhat different from today, since this was historically a society where gay and bisexual people were part of the accepted norm), flaring tempers; yet all is forgiven by the next day. This constant roughhousing gives the film not only verisimilitude, but energy and unpretentiousness.

That latter quality is especially important, because Jarman and Humfress deal with some dauntingly complex themes, as important now as seventeen hundred years ago, including the meaning of spirituality, the place of sexuality in life, and the contradictory nature of reality. The film's wild streak of humor, and its sometimes breathtaking visual design, help keep this profoundly serious work from overdosing on what some people call "heaviosity."

The thematic core, as expected in a work about a man on the road to sainthood, is spirituality; and few films, including self-styled "religious movies," let one feel so deeply the growing importance of faith to an individual. Even some of the translated dialogue is beautiful, as when Sebastian, gazing at his and the sky's reflection in a pool of water, says that divinity is "That beauty that made all colors different.... The heavens and earth are united in gold." But while that vision of faith is powerful, it also has many layers, some of which are provocatively ambiguous. For some viewers, a central question will be: Is Sebastian a true Christian or is he a syncretist grafting his personal version of the new religion onto much older, Greco-Roman roots? The film offers different possible answers, not as a dodge, but because the film realizes how multi-faceted religious experience is, growing out of social, personal and spiritual contexts.

"I love him. He is beautiful. More beautiful than Adonis"

The film shows us Sebastian becoming ever more removed from his fellow soldiers, an outsider among outsiders, as he feels himself drawn closer to his deity. While Sebastian is being tortured (the first time) for his intransigence – stripped and staked to the ground – he talks with the sweet-natured Justin (Richard Warwick, who was Antonio in Jarman's The Tempest), who is in love with him (perhaps more for his beauty than his faith). At the climax of this scene, Sebastian cries out, referring to the personification of his growing spirituality, "I love him. He is beautiful. More beautiful than Adonis." The subtext – at once spiritual, sadomasochistic, homoerotic, and heartrendingly tender – is made apparent when Sebastian, oblivious to Justin's feelings, says, "He takes me in his arms and caresses my bleeding body." When Justin shields Sebastian from the sun, he jerks his head away; for Sebastian, only God can give him solace.

The full nature of Sebastian's ecstatic faith is subtly questioned. In his delirium, he has mistaken the character referred to in the credits as the Leopard Boy, presumably a member of a local tribe, for a manifestation of a god or God. Since we see the Leopard Boy before Sebastian does – soon after the latter's arrival in this remote outpost – it is assumed that he is a real character and neither a figment of Sebastian's imagination nor a literalistic manifestation of deity. So, does this self-delusion lessen the importance of Sebastian's growing faith?

One of the most remarkable aspects of the film is that it can be seen as either spiritual or secular; perhaps its deep strain of humanism is the common link. Sebastiane is spiritual in that we feel the deep importance of faith to Sebastian, more so than in most self-styled religious movies. But this film also offers a rational, secular reason for that – Sebastian's world is harsh (betrayed by his beloved Diocletian) and his life is hard (he lives in a literal and metaphorical wasteland); it also shows Sebastian's confusion (misinterpreting the Leopard Boy as a deity, not to mention one which may be simultaneously, to him, Greco-Roman and/or Christian). Whether or not Sebastian's faith is based on layers of confusion, we can fully understand why it is so essential, and nourishing, to him under the circumstances of his life.

On the other hand, if Sebastiane is seen as a straightforwardly spiritual film – and some people consider it so – then there are few other pictures which depict, in such profoundly real and moving terms, the slow but unshakeable process of one person embracing a faith fully, to the extent that he would sacrifice his life for its principles. When Sebastian, a former commander to the emperor, early on refuses to engage in mock combat because, as he says in all sincerity, "Christians don't fight," we know that he is paving the way for his own destruction, which the film depicts step by inexorable step.

Aesthetically Sebastiane is an extremely well-made film – dramatically, visually, and musically – despite its constricted budget. The screenplay is deftly structured, with each scene finding the right length to delineate its characters and expose the necessary information. This film knows how to balance its oppositions, both dramatic, from soldierly raunch to spiritual awakening and visual, finding beauty in the mysterious depths of water and the serenity of the fatal desert.

The cinematography by Peter Middleton (who also shot Jarman's next two films) is exceptional, especially considering that these powerful images were originally shot in 16mm (before being blown up to 35mm for theatrical release). The editing by co-writer/director Paul Humfress is crisp. And Brian Eno's superb minimalist score (his first work for film) provides both haunting atmosphere and, in its electronic modernness, just a bit of distance from the realism of the ancient setting.

There is also beauty in the English of Jarman and Humfress' subtitles. In radiant contrast to the soldiers' tart slang is Sebastian's mystically beautiful hymns of praise to his deity and its world. "That beauty that made all colors different.... The heavens and earth are united in gold." Sebastiane achieves genuine cinematic poetry, uniting word, image, and sound, which adds not only another rich texture to a many-layered film, but still more depth to Sebastian's evolving character.

This film is no mere exercise in historical recreation. It is a work of flesh and blood, which in its depiction of the collision course of Sebastian's religious fervor and Severus's uncontrollable desire cuts through the disastrously tangled knot of desire and power. Here, the theme is explored from the dual perspective of spirituality and gay life.

Paradoxically, much of the film's power as a specifically gay-themed work comes from the fact that the homoeroticism is not only unselfconscious but in the background. It is just another aspect of these men's lives, and one which their larger society takes for granted. They reveal, through their jibes, that a man may just as likely be attracted to a woman as to another man. This is a place where guys can taunt each other about their interest in both Vestal Virgins and popular female whores and equally, about their interest in members of the same sex. This is still one of the only films to present a world which is both credible and completely accepting of same-sex relationships; where sexual orientation is a non-issue. That vision must have been extraordinarily gratifying to gay audiences a mere quarter of a century ago (which also explains Sebastiane's great success at the box office, which surprised many people), at a time when movies and books offered only the most hopeless depiction of trapped, doomed homosexual existence (which, on one level, the Sebastian/Severus plot strand reflects).

Sebastiane also contains some of the most genuinely tender and loving moments of any gay-themed film up to that time, especially in the budding relationship of the minor characters Adrian, whom the other men tease about being a virgin, and Anthony. Their scene together in the water, shot in slow motion, may look like some soft-core fantasy – with the camera lingering over almost every inch of their sculpted bodies – but the emotional connection between them seems every bit as real as their physical desire. Early in the film there is a comparably overt scene, consisting of Sebastian pouring water over his nude body and rubbing himself clean. What makes these scenes of central importance is that they highlight one of the film's most interesting layers. They are both clearly from the point of view of Severus, the repressed but passionate captain of these outcast soldiers. In other words, these sensual, beautiful and moving images are all from the antagonist's point of view.

But then, Severus is much more than a traditional villain. In a comparable story of this type he would be the closeted 'homosexual heavy,' like the diabolical Claggart in Melville's 1891 final novella, Billy Budd, or the officer in Carson McCullers' 1941 novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye. Severus is more complex than that, both psychologically and in his key role in the narrative structure. Severus has such resonance because of the depth of Jarman and Humfress's film making, as well as Barney James engrossing performance in the roll.

"Sebastiane, love me."

Severus seems to be equally divided between raw lust and genuine love for Sebastian. But Sebastian is no simple martyr in this film. He is portrayed simultaneously as a young man with the beauty of a Greek god but with the fierce piety of a saint-in-training, yet one who is not adverse to teasingly close physical contact with his friend Justin. And it is all too clear how he contributes to the monumental frustration of Severus, which ultimately leads to the visceral climax. Before that, and the final seduction attempt by Severus, there is an intimate moment with him. This scene, with Severus drunk, alone in his narrow quarters and going mad with desire for Sebastian, is so powerful in part because the voyeuristic interest in his "private life" is being fulfilled. Even more, Jarman and Humfress provide a fascinating, subtle visual gloss on the action and emotion. They shoot the scene from overhead – perhaps from the ironic perspective of, say, a low-flying god – which makes the claustrophobia of Severus's space, and life, all the more vivid. You can see the duality of Severus which stands at the center of a film filled with dualities yoked together in the climactic rape scene with Sebastian where Sebastian is dark, even a bit menacing, with the underlighting and the "devilish" beard; while Severus – hair ringed with golden light – looks like a Renaissance image of a Greek god, Apollo or Adonis, the very deities which not-quite-fully-Christian Sebastian longed for. The complex and contradictory role of Severus becomes even more intriguing when you realize that he implicates the viewer in his voyeuristic and disturbing, yet undeniably beautiful, gazing at radiant young men.

Perhaps an even more subtle influence on the film's tone is its rich connections to art, as well as gay, history. Jarman, of course, was already both an acclaimed painter and impassioned gay rights advocate before becoming a filmmaker. Historically, Saint Sebastian with his muscular physique, tied to a pillar, drilled with arrows, the embodiment of intense but safely-bound desire and soulful eyes, became not only one of the most frequently-painted subjects in Renaissance art but an enduring, albeit sadomasochistic, gay icon.

Saint Sebastian has had a revival in the time of AIDS, perhaps because of his dual role as icon of tortured male beauty and as the patron saint of – even more than soldiers, athletes, and archers – sufferers of the plague.

Jarman and Humfress's visionary film is a fascinating, aesthetically and emotionally complex addition to the long tradition of works about Saint Sebastian. For some, its matter-of-fact depiction of a world, although ancient, free of homophobia is compelling. ~ (excerpted review) J. Clark