breaking up is hard to
do
by Douglas Messerli
Ira
Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias (screenplay), Ira Sachs (director) Keep the Lights On / 2012
Like many documentaries, the film begins with a defining event and
expresses its story through a series of revealing scenes, conveying the
vagaries of the story and pointing up the inevitable outcome—in this case the end
of their relationship. And, in that sense, this film lacks a certain amount of
substantive richness that might have been achieved by occasionally refocusing
on characters or events slightly askew from his two major figures, himself (in
the movie a Danish documentary filmmaker, Erik [Thure Lilndhardt]) and Paul. Although
by the end of the movie, we do have some idea of the problems facing both these
young men, it would have helped, moreover, if the filmmaker and his co-author
had somehow given us a few clues, without over-psychologizing the work, as to
how the two had developed into the two ciphers who, through a casual sexual
hookup, suddenly fall in love.
Despite the fact that the film is somewhat heavily-laden with “plot,” the characters,
particularly Erik are absolutely charming. Both Erik—who underneath his sexual
addiction, truly seeks a monogamous relationship and, as the director reveals
again and again, to use the cliché, is “head-over-heels” in love with the
attractive Paul—and his companion seem immediately right for one
another, despite Paul’s inability to totally commit. Paul is, nonetheless, a
hard worker and, evidently, makes a decent salary. At several points in the
story, Erik is needled (in one instance by his sister, in another by Paul
himself) for not truly having “a job,” as if working as a documentary artist
was less a profession than a hobby. It is little wonder that, later in the
film, Erik is attracted—both physically and psychologically—to a young gay man,
Igor, who is studying to be an “artist.” For the wage-earners of this world, perhaps
justifiably, but always mistakenly, are dismissive of those who create as
opposed to those who work by the clock. Throughout Keep the Lights On, Paul insists he must work the next morning and,
when morning arrives, that he is afraid we will be late. Such a mantra, in
fact, becomes, at times, another ruse not to discuss the real issues at hand.

What we also discern
early on is that it not only takes a great deal of time (four years, at least,
for the film that Erik is working on) to accomplish his art, but it takes an
enormous outpouring of money (I had earlier in the day watched Godard’s Tout va bien, which begins with a
satirical look at how much money a film takes to get made by showing check
after check being torn from away from a checkbook). Fortuitously, Erik appears
to have been born into a fairly wealthy family, and his father has bankrolled
his first film, a fact his well-off sister—who evidently feels she has more
entitlement to the inheritance than her more-independent brother—somewhat
maliciously reminds him. Obviously, we must put Erik’s fairly affluent
upbringing and his ability to see the world both from a European and an
American point of view (Paul is his first American boyfriend) into the brew of
their bubbling relationship.
For
the first several “scenes” of this film, love seems to dominate, as, despite
occasional instances—for example when the two male lovers encounter Paul’s
girlfriend visiting the same gallery in which they are strolling—they seem
truly to discover and enjoy one another. Erik’s few friends, mostly straight
co-workers, are enchanted by his new love interest, and the couple seem on its
way—despite the dreadful times—to some sense of permanence. Paul is both
beautiful and intelligent; Erik almost boyishly hopeful and creative.
It is a couple everyone who loves happiness might envy.
Yet
Erik’s travels for his work breed difficulties, deep-lined resentments and
simple temptations for his mate. Telephoning home, is he met increasingly with
unanswered calls, long silences, and upon returning, with equally unexplained
absences. When Paul sees Erik even talking with a young man on the street, he
goes into a quiet frenzy, determined to spend the night on the couch, Erik
equally determined to force him back into bed. Erik’s increasing attempts to
save Paul from himself further send Paul into the drugged-out corners of his
life. The very night Erik wins a “Teddy” in Berlin (an award for documentary
film, which, coincidentally, the director has since won), Paul is not to be
found, and upon Erik’s return to New York he discovers that his lover has been
missing—clearly on a drug binge—for several days. With Erik’s insistence and
caring, Paul suffers a several month rehabilitation program, but as part of the
program he must keep away sexually for a period from the very man who has saved him. Erik's
loving tribute to Paul and his courageousness at a Christmas dinner party only exacerbates Paul’s sensitivity.
Life
goes on. But when Erik is given the possibility of working in a writer’s
colony, Paul again goes missing. Erik’s return to reclaim him is the
most powerful and perverse scene in the movie, as he discovers the missing Paul
in a hotel room, after days of crack-cocaine, awaiting the services of a
hustler whom he has hired, obviously, to fuck him brutally as
self-punishment and also in a desperate attempt to reclaim his own being. He
insists Erik leave, that he not be witness to his drugs and self-immolation,
but Erik, almost saintly but, also, clearly out of intense love, remains—at
first painfully separated in the other room, but when his name is called,
coming into the bedroom to hold his lover’s hand at the very moment he is being
roughly screwed. I know there are millions of Americans who will not understand
this scene as one of the deepest expressions of love and compassion, but they
are, quite simply, mistaken. Yet Erik’s great sacrifice can only come with
further expectations and disappointments. And it is followed with a subterfuge visit—in Erol's
own enactment of self-hatred—to one of his earlier sexual partners, an
exhibitionist, slob of a human being, who represents Erik’s polar
opposite.
Paul
returns to therapy, joining his friend again on a night where they lay next to
one another naked without—through his insistence, evidently part of the
therapy—their being able to have sex. Erik is so delighted just for Paul’s
presence that he will not allow the lights to go out; Erik wants to see, to
“witness” the embodiment of his love.
It is at that very moment that we realize there has been a deep toll to pay. The
couple, spending a few days at a country escape, might as well be on other
planets, Erik, perhaps because of his lover’s continued abstinence of sex (which
is, after all, for both men, another kind of drug) quietly masturbating in the
woods before demanding a discussion with Paul, asking Paul what is the future
for them. For once, Paul turns the tables, demanding Erik express his own feelings
rather than passively relying on him, insisting that Erik take responsibility
for his own emotions. But even here, Erik bases his responses on his lover’s.
“What do you want?”
To
our surprise, Paul suggests that they return to living together. But this time,
he gives no room for equivocation. He demands Erik make his decision in three
hours. As Erik drives Paul to the train station, intending himself to return to
New York the next day, Paul demands his decision. Erik agrees to continue the
relationship.

That is the way most relationships end, and most relationships,
unfortunately, end these days. At least here, both men end in a hug instead of
hate, and move on with their lives. Perhaps that happens only in movies, but
I’d like to think that, at least the ending of Sach’s moving and honest film was closer to a documentation of the facts than a fiction.
Los
Angeles, September 14, 2012
Reprinted from Nth Position (October 2012).
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