Garcon Stupide

[Charlieee]

http://www.afterelton.com/movies/2005/9/garconstupide.html

The man looks past the boy’s obvious youthful attraction and demands a “real” relationship before having sex. This catches Loic completely off guard. The simple-minded boy, surprised that he could be so interesting to such an intelligent man, finds himself strangely drawn to Lionel, and keeps returning to him, even though their relationship remains sexless. Through their friendship Loic discovers a hitherto unknown inner resolve for self-evolution.

Has anyone seen Garcon Stupide? I haven't seen it, I'm writing an article about it though. It looks good. Maybe Blockbuster'll have it. I doubt it though, my Blockbuster doesn't have a lot of foreign films.

2013 Mod Edit: The above link doesn't work anymore, but the review of the movie can be found here. For future reference:

Review of Garçon Stupide

by Robert Urban, September 14, 2005

Garçon Stupide (in French, with English subtitles) is a modern-day gay coming-of-age story set in a small industrial town in Switzerland. Grittily filmed in a psychological/documentary style, the movie possesses a uniquely quiet, distant kind of beauty.

This latest film from Swiss director Lionel Baier also features a reserved yet deeply haunting score created from the music of Sergej Rachmaninov.

The basic plot of Garcon Stupide is this: Loic, a young 20-ish gay man in provincial Switzerland, works a meaningless job in a chocolate factory by day, while at night, regularly sows his wild oats in the random nothingness of anonymous sexual encounters. Whether he’s tricking for money or fun, Loic remains emotionally detached from his trysts, until an older man named Lionel answers his online personal ad and the two meet.

The man looks past the boy’s obvious youthful attraction and demands a “real” relationship before having sex. This catches Loic completely off guard. The simple-minded boy, surprised that he could be so interesting to such an intelligent man, finds himself strangely drawn to Lionel, and keeps returning to him, even though their relationship remains sexless. Through their friendship Loic discovers a hitherto unknown inner resolve for self-evolution.

But the uneducated and rather clueless Loic is clumsy at self-betterment, and keeps messing things up along the way. When he meets a hot young soccer star, he quickly becomes obsessed. When that doesn’t pan out, he awkwardly jumps to his next “career move”: using his own mobile camera phone to try and become a professional artistic photographer. In his quest to prove to both himself and to Lionel that he’s not just a shallow nobody, he disrupts all his normal relationships and routines at work, with his parents, and with his patient, loyal girl-friend/roommate.

The film’s message, as relayed through Lionel’s continuous, suggestive “know thyself” type questions to Loic, is that connecting with someone deeply and platonically can be more meaningful, more important, and even more exciting than just having hot casual sex. One could say Lionel represents Loic’s own inner adult conscience trying to come into being and exert influence as he struggles to grow up.

In Garçon Stupide, Swiss director Lionel Baier draws considerably from his background as a documentary filmmaker. The relationship between the young, aimless Loic and the older, more centered Lionel is depicted entirely as a series of “man-on-the-street” type interview shots (or phone calls). They are always framed from the point-of-view of Lionel. Thus we never see Lionel; we only hear his voice. The camera stays on Loic as he looks directly into it for his conversations with Lionel.

It must be noted that Baier is clearly enamored with his young star Pierre Chatagny. He even seems to have constructed the well-meaning (if not overly idealistic) story in honor of him. Can it be just coincidence that both director “Lionel” Baier and Garçon Stupide movie character “Lionel” share the same first name?

Novice actor Chatagny delivers a charming, entirely natural performance as the sexually active yet “stupid” young Loic. Truth be told, by simple virtue of his sweet youth, exceptional good looks and certain rough, shy, “newcomer” appeal, this guy is irresistible to watch. He manages to carry the film even when the film isn’t really carrying itself.

Interestingly, months of filming caught this young man in the process of his own coming-out growth, with all its attendant little body developments, physical mannerisms, and, how-does-one-say, “gay aura” flowerings. We can actually see Chatagny appearing more recognizably “gay” as his character evolves from the not-yet-fully “out” stage to the more self-realized, mature homosexual person he eventually becomes.

This apparently had more than just a coincidental effect on the film’s plot and narrative. According to the Garçon Stupide press release, as the script was being written, Pierre Chatagny’s personality and experiences began to shape the way his character was drawn by Baier and co-writer Laurent Guido. Baier states, “I tried to portray the lives of characters who resembled the very actors who played them. At the same time, I also wanted to ensure the story a certain freedom, allowing it develop on its own, in an almost organic way.”

There are other parallels between story and fact in the film. The chocolate factory where Chatagny actually works was used as the day job for his character Loic. Real footage of him on the job there was incorporated into the film.

For her role as Marie, Loic’s supportive roommate, confidant, and, (for lack of a better term), “fag hag”, Natacha Koutchoumov has been nominated for a 2005 Swiss Film Prize. Her strong, matter-of-fact performance in the film plays well off the non-actor Chatagny’s un-actor-like characterization.

The main problem with this film is that its somewhat dreamy, gap-filled plot/narrative simply does not unfold fully, logically or believably from its opening premise. Although the film starts out well, with plenty of good intrigue and interest, it becomes somewhat vague, disjointed, and a bit forced in its development. Loic’s troubled path to self-realization, especially in the sub-plot of his weird stalking and involvement with a soccer-star, could have been realized better. Additional unnecessary tragic incidences concocted into the plot by the writers, like Loic’s car accident and meeting with his parents, could have simply been omitted.

To the filmmaker’s credit, the graphic sex scenes in Garçon Stupide were photographed in a way that makes them appropriately crude and shallow, but not pornographic. The interesting use of double split screen montages in the film’s sex scenes harkens back to the work of one of Baier’s great French-speaking predecessors, director Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon.

Garçon Stupide offers a plot full of unexpected and sometimes wrong turns along a rather twisted course, but its surprise ending is a gently warm and satisfying one.

Garçon Stupide opens in NYC on September 16 at the Angelika Film Center, with Los Angeles to follow in early October.