10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE February 1, 2002
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Hey Sisters! It's time for... Oven Productions
17th Annual atomyn's Variety
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Saturday, February 23, 2002
The Civic
3130 Mayfield Rd., Cleveland Hts. Doors open at 6:00pm-Show starts at 7:30pm and following the Variety Show
njost Fabulous Party in Town! with DJ Freeze
Reunite with old friends, network with new womyn,
support the vendors,
and be part of the longest running womyn's production in the country!
Tickets $18
On sale now at these locations...
5 Cent Decision, 4365 State Rd., Cleveland
Body Language, W. 115th & Lorain, Cleveland
Inn on Coventry, 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights
Sliding scale deadline Feb 15th
(216) 321-7799 for information
18+ Womyn Only
evening'sout
A quiet, revealing look at a young man's coming of age
by Kaizaad Kotwal
Come Undone (Presque Rien), recently released on video by Picture This Entertainment, is a wonderfully intimate and revealing film from French director Sebastien Lifshitz. Co-written by him, Come Undone is a very moving and detailed portrait of coming of age. Lifshitz came to prominence with his short film You Gotta Love It in 1995. In Come Undone we are taken into the world of Mathieu, who is going through growing pains. As if adolescence itself were
Come Undone
not hard enough, Mathieu's journey through hormones and happiness is complicated by coming to terms with his homosexuality. He is also at a place in life where he must establish himself as a unique individual, apart from his family. This discovery of self and others is the focus of this keenly observant drama.
The film takes place on the beaches of southern France where a passionate romance between Mathieu and another teen is burgeoning. Mathieu is a quiet 18-year-old boy spending the summer in a very picturesque town on the beach near the coast of Nantes. He is living with his mother, with whom he has a sometimes-difficult relationship, an incredibly inquisitive aunt and a clingy sister. He is seeking respite from these three women when he meets Cedric, a confident, almost arrogant young man. So begins a romance which lasts 18 months and takes these two young men, particularly Mathieu, on the bittersweet journey of a lifetime.
Mathieu is not experienced at all in matters of the heart or in the ways of sex. Cedric, quite the opposite, begins to pursue Mathieu partly because they are so different. These two boys start to meet clandestinely on the beach at night, exploring their hearts, their souls and their gorgeously bronzed bodies. In the process of falling in love, they decide to let their families in on their relationship and part of the film is about the ways in which family copes with such love.
Their love affair begins with a most inti-
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mate and erotic kiss, a lip lock that sets in motion the ups and downs of falling in and out of love. The film unabashedly shows these two boys falling in love and sharing the bliss of each other's bodies as they go skinnydipping at night, dance nude on the beach and make passionate love in the shade of the sand dunes on the beach. Like a lot of European films, Come Undone is frank in its sexuality and nudity, and yet it doesn't ever seem exploitative or gratuitous. Director Lifshitz is sensitive enough to allow us a window into the world without ever making us seem like unwelcome voy-
eurs.
love
As this grows, Mathieu has
to cope with his ailing mother, his absent father and annoying sister. But, like many first loves, things are never forever. The affair eventually bursts and he is left to pick up the pieces.
The film takes us intimately into his initiation into homosexuality, his euphoria of first love and sex, his devastation at falling out of love and his eventual start on the road to recovery and possible new love in he future.
The film is subtly done and is for the most part quiet and unassuming, taking the audience into the heart and mind of a confused adolescent boy. It doesn't spell everything out, leaving things open-ended, things unsaid, capturing perfectly the inability of Mathieu to make sense of a rapidly churning universe.
The ensemble cast is marvelous but the film belongs to its two talented and beautiful leads. Jeremie Elkaim makes his feature debut in the movie and he captures the chaos of adolescence with quiet grace and moving subtlety. Stephane Rideau as the more experienced Cedric has played gay before, most notably in another gay French classic, Wild Reeds. Rideau is amazing to watch as he uses his charm, his sexuality and his smoldering good looks to give Mathieu the ride of his life.
Ultimately it is Lifshitz's directing that bring out the best in these two actors and the story. He just lets things unfold in front of us, like a series of memories, and we watch, waiting and hoping for things to work out, all the time knowing that first love is perilous and a road fraught with pain, exstasy and a lot of growing up. Love is that crazy thing by which even the strongest among us can come undone.
DAVID A. BUDNY, D.C.
16900 DETROIT AVE LAKEWOOD, OHIO 44107 216-228-6622
Dedicated to your wellness
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