The main draw of this film was and is the participation of none other than one of the major gay porn stars working today, the breathtakingly sexy Frenchman François Sagat, who plays Emmanuel, one half of a disintegrating couple living in Gennevilliers, one of the suburban communes (banlieues) north of Paris. His other half, a budding filmmaker named Omar (Omar Ben Sellem), kicks Emmanuel out after a burst of petulance at Omar's imminent departure for New York to accompany actress Chiara Mastroianni (as herself) and document her time in the US leads to him to force himself sexually onto Omar--the act verges on rape. The minimal plot tracks what happens to each afterwards: both spread their seed, as it were, Emmanuel in Gennevilliers and Paris, Omar in New York City, quite graphically, then the filmmaker returns home to the apartment in the banlieue, and voilà, le film s'est terminé.
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| Homme au bain, image from Tetu.com |
On the one hand it's almost a trifle as a plotted feature; nothing momentous really happens, nothing is really resolved (though I won't give away the ending), it's mostly atmospherics, backed by great classical and contemporary pop music, interspersed with various hints at deeper narrative possibilities Honoré might have explored. And, given that it's a French film, there's a significant bit of philosophical piffle that adds little beyond ambient texture, but when compared to most contemporary US queer cinema, stands out. On the other hand, the verisimilitude, especially when the issue of money comes up, sometimes approaching the status of documentary (and Honoré ironizes this through the use of the DV pieces), is noteworthy. The film also has many small, true touches, especially when unfolding in and around Paris, that feel right. Homme au bain offers what I would argue is a far truer portrait of contemporary French and gay life than anything we'd comparably see in the US. In that regard, in addition to the presence of a frequently nude Sagat, it's worth seeing.
