film note: Refugee’s Welcome

Refugee’s Welcome
Directed by Bruce La Bruce
Germany, 2017

Has Bruce La Bruce finally grown up?

If not for the credit at the beginning of this 22-minute short produced for XConfessions, I would never have been able to tell who directed it. Sure, there are skinheads and real, not-simulated sex ? the hottest he’s ever directed ? but where are the zombies? The cheap shock tactics? The outsider pretensions? The wink-wink cinephile jokes?

Nowhere to be found.

OK, there’s a little of all that, particularly in the twist at the end; but mostly what’s here is tender and humanist, proposing sex as a bridge between political, social, and personal worlds, as a specifically gay pool of affinities to draw strength from.

A cute, kinda twinky Syrian refugee (played by a very good Jesse Charif) wanders Berlin exploring his new home. He happens upon a cafe where a muscular, tattooed punk is reading poetry. (A Guns ‘n’ Roses logo is among the tats) I recognized that the language he was speaking was Czech. We find out later that he’s from CR. (“I’m a foreigner, too,” he tells the Refugee.) Standing in the doorway listening, the Syrian boy gets noticed immediately by the Punk. They lock eyes, but the Refugee leaves quickly, a little unnerved. (We never learn their names, by the way.)

Back wandering, he gets jumped by a gang of skinheads, what else. The Punk intervenes like an action hero and saves him ? providing some comic moments ? then takes him back home to patch him up.

The Punk’s ministrations include a foot washing, which leads, of course, to foot worship, and then a hot sex scene and two cum shots. For me though, the care, attention, and humility in the Punk’s washing of the Refugee’s feet, evokes a sense of religious ritual and an invitation to fellowship.

That a satisfying sex scene logically follows makes the gesture radical. It’s not the sort of revelation we usually get in real-sex, gay movies, such as in Ich will deine Liebe, Eloi & Biel, oder Wrecked. It’s a welcome move forward from a director not known for advancing any but the most pedestrian, if nominally underground ideas about the meanings behind what we do in bed, and why.

Pro tip: If you’re new to XConfessions, sign up for the newsletter and you can watch one movie for free.