drama queen
by
Douglas Messerli
Claude Miller (screenwriter and director) La meilleure façon de marcher (The Best Way to Walk) / 1976
Claude Miller’s 1976 film, La meilleure façon de marcher (The Best Way to Walk) is one of the few films I’ve ever encountered in which I could not properly interpret its signifiers in order to comprehend what it was attempting to express.
When Philippe suggests that instead of
separating their students into those committed to the arts and those to sports
that they join forces to permit their underlings a wider range of experiences—a
suggestion, one suspects, that is aimed of working nearer to his torturer and
source of unrequited love—the viewer almost holds his breath in anticipation of
all-out war. And, in fact, that is almost what happens as Philippe, thrown into
the swimming pool by Marc, almost drowns, and Marc, at a school going-away
party, is stabbed in the leg by Philippe while translating Shylock’s poignant
questions about his being Jewish into those of a confused gay man.
I must admit, however, there are a few
things I have left out in my telling of this basic plot. One night, when the
lights fail during a poker game, Marc knocks on Philippe’s door to borrow some
candles, only to discover him, all alone, costumed in a woman’s dress and
makeup. Although he does not share what he has discovered with the others, it
becomes the basis for his bullying of Philippe, and also results in a somewhat
strange bribe for his continued silence: that someday his fellow camp counselor
may be able to provide some unspecified “services.”
Now I know that perhaps dressing up his
character in drag was director Miller’s way of tipping us off that his “hero”
was sexually confused. But it is difficult to know why he chose this method. Do
most budding homosexuals dress up in women’s garb alone each night? Contrarily,
I believe that those gays who practice cross-dressing do so that they might
share the outrageousness or success of their portrayal of the opposite sex
with others. To my way of thinking, it is an open expression of something transgender
figures have been previously forced to hide, and feel freed in public to express
through imitation. And, of course, there are many wonderfully convincing drag
queens who are heterosexual.
I think it is similar to the fact that
when men and women who have long felt uncomfortable with their assigned sex
become transsexuals one of the first things they want to share with others is
the fact of that transformation (see my essay-review of Pedro Almodóvar’s The
Skin I Live In from 2011).
In my admittedly limited experience
with these things, I have never heard of a drag queen who performs his art solo.
But even more importantly, Miller has previously given us no evidence that
Philippe might even be interested in garbing himself in women’s apparel, unless
you imagine than in casting a young boy in an all-male camp as a princess he is
speaking of his own private desires. Throughout the film, in fact, he continues
to deny that he is gay and attempts, albeit unsuccessfully, to have sex with
Chantal. Even if we might imagine that Phillipe is so smitten with Marc that he
is rehearsing (an activity in which he daily immerses his students) a way to lure
him closer—a bit like Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Erwin who has a transsexual
operation to become Elvira in hopes of attracting his former lover Anton Saitz—Philippe’s
actions come as an inexplicable surprise in this movie.
All right, so Miller has now told us that his central character likes to dress in drag. Yet, it seems to have utterly no significance to the story except in the penultimate scene when he dresses as a Spanish dancer for the costume ball (the theme of which he suggested) where he illogically expects Marc to dance with him for the entire night, and, when rejected, almost as if out of revenge for the abuses he has had to suffer from Marc’s hands, stabs him in the thigh, presumably ending his days as a jock. But again, the director supplies us with little logic for the act other than simmering anger, hurt, disappointment. Certainly, it is an extremely melodramatic gesture for the mostly infantile taunting by a hopeful lover. Perhaps he is disappointed that Marc never would explain what he meant by the services he might provide or simply that Marc never asked those services be provided.
The last scene of this indiscernible work
is the most confusing, at least to me. It appears that, despite all odds, Phillippe
and Chantal, now living in Paris, have become a couple and are looking for an apartment.
The real estate agent they have chosen is Marc, who shows them the space and
congratulates them on their marriage. Marriage? What marriage? asks Chantal. As
if on signal, she leaves the apartment, while Phillippe waits at the door for
Marc to follow. Marc, forever the ladies’ man so it appears, politely says “After
you” before the credits begin to scroll up.
Has Marc finally recognized Philippe as a
feminine force? Is Philippe still interested in his former adversary? Have
Chantal and Philippe decided to move in together simply as friends? Is the best
way of walking to wait until one is politely asked to proceed? I can only
report, I have no clue as to the answer to any of these questions, and have no
idea whether these are even the proper questions to ask.
I might add, this picture presented us
with lovely sets and camera work, along with handsome actors and good acting.
As I suggested at the beginning of this short piece, I wanted to like this
film. But for what purpose? The only connecting thread I can find in this
mysterious creation is that grown men often behave more childish than the
children of which they require good behavior. Might I also suggest that these
pretty actors lack all credibility as humans in Miller's script.
Los Angeles, November 23, 2020
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog and World Cinema Review (November
2020).
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