B-4 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE DECEMBER 10, 1993

ENTERTAINMENT

Too much sex will kill you

Being at home with Claude Cleveland Cinematheque

Reviewed by Joseph Morris

Now presenting: your basic gay prostitute-murder mystery-love story. Why does love between two gay people have to be so fatalistic? Literally.

Being at home with Claude, a 1991 Canadian work (in French, subtitles) by Jean Beaudin, is a harsh film to watch. The opening sequences are fleeting, staccato, black-and-white images that offer sketchy details of Montreal, a festival, fireworks, two men screwing loudly and vigorously. The quick cuts build to a visual climax. The men are in the kitchen. The wild sex causes a glass to fall from the table, and then a large knife. One picks up the knife, they reach orgasm, the other's throat is slashed. Blood splatters the room. The young, sexy-looking killer wildly flees the scene, running, shoving through the crowd, always running...

The bulk of the film that follows is an intense police interrogation in rather plush surroundings. We learn that the killer is a male prostitute. He has let himself into the office of a prominent judge and called the police. He also invited a scandal-hungry newspaper reporter and photographer who wait in the hall for the promised exposé. They are to be used as pawns to blackmail the judge, a former client, into freeing the prostitute. The police inspector's hands seem tied, but he still doggedly presses ahead with his job. For 36 hours he and his assis-

tants have been questioning. The stud reveals little, not even his first name. We join the interrogation in its last hour or so. The inspector's nerves are strained but investigative work has started to produce details. He confronts the selfconfessed killer with the fragments: his name is Yves, the victim is Claude, Claude has

written in his diary

Yves (Roy Pupuis) peddles his wares in Being at home with Claude.

for the past 30 days how rapturously he has been in love with Yves. The street boy begins to squirm, especially when he hears, to his complete surprise, that Claude had a girlfriend and no one knew he was gay. The shell begins to crumble.

The drama of this adapted stage play is the cat-and-mouse interplay of Yves and the inspector; the film is essentially a twoman show. There are large sections of shouting at each other, tempered with quiet, wistful recollections. Yves, played by Roy Pupuis, is appropriately emotional although not always convincing. Cute without being stunning, the only naked flesh the film really offers is several quick glimpses of his torso. The inspector is played by Jacques Godin, who is a strong foil demanding

explanations. Perhaps to humanize the inspector, there is a misplaced scene where he privately telephones his wife (which played like he was talking to his mistress), and says he'll be home by 5. But the inspector doesn't need to be softened. His role is the cold, bureaucratic investigator trying to learn why this man killed his lover.

We're forced to listen to a long, selfcentered tale filled with half-dreams and confused images. It's obvious this prostitute has little grip on any reality beyond class difference. He's passionately in love with Claude, a privileged student, and can't understand it. The two meld as one when they're together but he can't believe it's really happening. For all his impassioned poetic odes to love amid lowliness, Yves is doomed and

THE MOSTLY UNFABULOUS SOCIAL LIFE & ETHAN GREEN...

RECRUITS YOU WILL FORM

wwwwww

SINGLE FILE LINE FOR BEARING PICK UP!

CONTROL QUEEN...

THINK THIS'LL WORK? (HELL BOY, IT'S GOTTA!

BEDDING

an

GIGGLE

giggle, SMIRK.

GOODNESS PRIVATE, (SINCERE BLINK) WHAT'S YOUR PLEASURE

?

ASSHOLES

AS IT HAPPENS, I WILL TAKE THE Paisley, However, YOUR ASSUMPTION THAT SUCH CHOICE

IS

tantamount

TO AN ADMISSION OF ANY PARTICULAR SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS AS PATHETIC AS IT IS INCORRECT....

BETCHA OLE SAMNUNN "WARDS US TH MERAL OF HONOR!

INTERIOR SHOT

JUS'SEE IF HE DON'T

HAW

he knows it from the onset-he's not allowed to love because he is gay and society doesn't like that. "Love" is in paid half-hour intervals, several times a day. Love between Claude and this orphaned, albeit expensively dressed and coiffed hustler, just could never work. He doesn't deserve this happiness. So he kills himself by killing his lover. I was uncomfortable with this gay selfloathing in The Boys in the Band more than 20 years ago. Must we see it again? Is there no hope for the gay street trade, even when they find happiness? A steady stream of films sanctify down-and-out or streetwalking (straight) people who find their lucky break and grab the gold ring. This film isn't one of them. It plays at the Cinematheque December 9 at 7:30 pm and repeats December 11 at 9:25 pm.

PRIVATE ETHAN...

MEN.

You GOTTA CHOICE OF Motif: OLİVE DRAB, CRUD BROWN,

...OR... fabulous PAISLEY...

WHY DON'T YOU ROCKET SCIENTISTS LEARN READ

THEN TAKE A LOOK AT THE FUCKING REGS...

ATER

NICELY DONE WORK ON THE TAL CORNERS. PRIVATE

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

DON'T PURSUE

BY Eric Orner

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