fait accompli
by
Douglas Messerli
Harold
Pinter (screenplay, based on Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers), Paul
Schrader (director) The Comfort of Strangers / 1990
As
audiences and commentators of LGBTQ films have long complained, there are far
too many instances in the movies where queer figures are tortured, maimed, and
killed—to say nothing of the real-life psychological abuses many of us have
suffer. Yet it is quite another thing—which began recurring regularly, it’s
strange to say, in the 1970s and 1980s during the increasing liberation of that
coalition—to portray such figures as cold-blooded murderers and savage fiends. Of course, in the US we might also add that
women have long been portrayed similarly, and that, in general, movies in the always-violent
50 states have all focused intensely upon murder and mayhem which film
characters either suffer or commit.
But it is one thing for male macho
heterosexual cowboys—living in the West of the past or presently in urban communities—to
“shoot it out” with one another for the possession of land, money, sexual
dominance (usually over a woman) or simply privilege, but it is quite another
thing to portray individuals who have long suffered societal ostracization by
gender, religion, race, or sexual identity as dangerous psychopaths lurking at
the edges of society ready at any moment to pounce upon those who already
possess the perceived rewards of what is described a normative life. The fear
such images call up help to set-back any of the achievements and recognition of
normalcy these folk have struggled to make apparent to the general society.
I have already reviewed several of these
accusatory films along the way, but I want to make it clear, even if I have not
centered my commentaries on the fact, that I am appalled by their existence,
even if sometimes fascinated by the tales they tell.
Like any segment of society, those who
identify as LGBTQ beings are not all saints, however one wants to define that
word. And some few of us are extremely dangerous beings. To ignore this fact,
moreover, would be tantamount to a wholesale erasement of queer life. Yet, I am
somewhat relieved that, in general, writers and directors attribute such
behaviors as emanating from their character’s inabilities to accept their own
sexualities. Certainly, that is true of Paul Schrader’s The
Comfort of Strangers (1990).
Harold Pinter who has written many a play
along with the scripts of films in which gays or bisexual men play out
nefarious and almost, at times, explicable relationships, but nothing in his previous
work efforts have prepared us for this adaptation of the novel by Ian McEwan,
in which two seemingly innocent lovers, Colin (Rupert Everett) and Mary
(Natasha Richardson), currently having some difficulties with their lack of completely
committing to one another, return to Venice, where they had once shared a stronger
sense of their love.
If it first appears that Colin is the
reluctant one in deciding to move in together with Mary, perhaps because she
has children from a previous marriage, as the film progresses it becomes
apparent that Mary has grown more cautious, in part, perhaps because of her
lover’s masculine appeal to nearly everyone they meet.
Certainly, Colin seems to be of interest
to a local, the well-dressed Robert (Christopher Walken), who decked-out in an
immaculate white suit is observed snapping pictures of him. When the couple,
after waking in their hotel one evening, decide to seek out a late-night snack,
finding most the restaurants now closed, they encounter Robert—not so very accidentally
we later perceive—who knows of a spot where they might dine, happily accompanying
them to the bar-restaurant.
Robert appears to be well known in this
place, and when told the kitchen has closed, quickly orders up several bottles of
his favorite wine, which they drink while crunching on a dinner of breadsticks.
Their host, meanwhile, when asked about
his past, tells a rather long and rather meaningless tale about his apparently
sadistic and highly controlling Italian diplomat father, a tale which he
repeats at least two other times in the movie: "My father was a very big
man. And he wore a black mustache. When he grew older and it grew gray, he
colored it with a pencil. The kind women use on their eyebrows. What do you
call it? Mascara."
As the camera slowly pans the bar’s other
patrons, the observant viewer will witness a room of mostly men, with only one woman
other than Mary. I made note of this, suspecting what it might mean.
Yet, nothing happens as the two lovers,
now somewhat tipsy, leave the establishment and attempt to return to their
hotel. Yet, it is almost as if they have now entered a Venice they have never
before encountered. Wherever they turn they end up somewhere other than the
opening to the small squares they had expected, again and again encountering walls
where they recalled other paths and bridges, or small walkways that might move
them away from the direction they are seeking. Finally, they become so tired from
the wine and exhausted from their walk, that they simply sit down and fall
asleep, waking up in the early dawn.
Ultimately making their way out of circuitous
maze, they find their way back to St. Mark’s Basilica and, still exhausted and
hungry, stop at a small outdoor café for breakfast.
There, they once more run into Robert, who
apologizing for not having guided them back to their hotel the previous
evening, now insists that they rest at
his home and dine there. They discover that he, and his wife Caroline (Helen
Mirren) reside in a multi-story Moorish-like mansion, and gladly fall into the
beds to which she and Robert guide them.
When, hours later, they awaken, they discover
their clothes are missing, Mary slipping into a bathrobe she finds in the room
and Colin donning a huge towel, they attempt to discover any evidence their
hosts.
Caroline appears, reporting that her
husband has gone out for a while, but that she, on his orders, has hidden their
clothing until they agree to stay for dinner. She also, somewhat
disconcertingly describes that she has watched them asleep simply to observe
their beauty.
Apparently, they have no choice but to
remain.
Robert soon returns, taking Colin aside
to show him his father’s immense library, while Mary remains talking to
Caroline, the latter of whom explains that she seldom goes out because she suffers
significant back pain.
Once again Robert demonstrates that he is
obsessed by his father, speaking of his preference for the past. Out of the
blue, so to speak, he asks a rather off-handed question about what Colin thinks
of homosexuals, and when the young man responds that he has nothing against
them, the host inexplicably slugs him hard in the stomach, forcing Colin to
stagger back, gasping for breath. Suddenly, we perceive that Robert is an
extreme homophobe, and that his comments about his father using mascara were
somehow related to his vision of heterosexual men being representative of
another preferable period in history.
The lovers, Mary and Colin, spend an
uncomfortable evening at the dinner table, despite the fact that Robert and
Caroline are sociable and polite. But as they turn to go, Mary picks up a few
photographs lying nearby on a side table, hiding her destress that in one of
the pictures she has spotted Colin.
Their hosts calmly see them out, insisting
that they must return soon.
That event, we soon perceive, has completely
altered, inwardly, their own relationship. And from this point on, Colin, who
has not yet told her of Robert’s violent aggression, becomes increasingly
determined to set up house with his lover and her children, while Mary grows
seemingly leerier of their making a sudden decision.
Nonetheless, the two finally take in
some of the standard tourist sites, some of which they perhaps experienced on
their first visit to the water-bound city. There does appear to be a closer
bond between them, both of them revealing their meaningless “secrets.”
I’d suggest that Colin’s new-found
eagerness to actualize their love, has something to do with both his attraction
to and his fear of Robert, while Mary’s sudden diffidence may be related to the
fact that Colin, having been captured on camera by Robert, could be hiding
something from her.*
Soon after, the two determine to visit
the beach, and while trekking back toward their hotel suddenly find themselves
directly across a waterway from Robert and Caroline’s mansion, impulsively
deciding to simply drop in to say goodbye.
They take a small boat to the house, and
are greeted with open arms by both of the strangers, who seemed to have
expected them since they had called the couple’s hotel earlier that morning to
invite them, also to say goodbye, since they are moving to Canada in order to
allow them a one-level residence to help Caroline move about more freely.
Robert is busy packing up his father’s library, but stops what he is doing to
announce that he must make a short errand before dinner, requesting that Colin
join him.
What we discern from that short trip is
that the bar/restaurant to which Robert first took them is owned by Robert
himself, and, moreover, that, as we might have suspected, it is a gay
establishment. In the alley, where they meet some of Robert’s employees, he
tells them in Italian—later reporting the incident to Colin—that the beautiful
man accompanying him is his lover. If Colin isn’t utterly confounded by this
time, then the audience certainly is.
Meanwhile, back at their Maison, Caroline,
while boiling up the water to serve tea, explains that her back is the product
of the S&M games she and Robert have, over the years, which have
increasingly escalated into more painful events.
The tea is served, while Mary asks why
Colin appeared in one of their photos. As Mary begins to drink the tea, which
she quickly perceives has been spiked with a drug, Caroline suggests she visit
their bedroom, helping her guest, at this point, to remain steady on her feet
as she pulls her into a small cell-like space whose walls are covered with
blown-up pictures of Colin, all shot, apparently, by her husband and brought
home to her as a gift in which she has found great delight.
By this time Mary, startled by the coarse
of events, but unable to even speak, begs to be released or, at least, a doctor
called. But by this point we realize that whatever trap the monsters have set
up is already in place.
As Robert returns with Colin, Mary
attempts to call out to him about her newfound terrors, while the urbane
gentleman in the white suit smilingly takes out a knife and slits Colin’s neck,
sliding his beautiful slowly to the floor, which only now we recognize as a
sexual fait accompli.
The comfort—or even what Tennessee
William’s Blanche DuBois describes as the kindness—of strangers should
never something upon which one might need to depend.
* It
is an interesting aside to note that just a year before he was chosen to play
this role, Everett came out publicly as a gay man, having played several gay
roles in film previously.
Los
Angeles, September 17, 2020
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review and My Queer Cinema (September 2020).
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