Exploitation Nation

Un Chant D’ Amour aka The Song Of Love (1950) ***1/2
D. Jean Genet
Cult Epics
Full Frame B/W

Jean Genet is a counter culture hero for his outre’ writings that blasted through the glass ceiling of acceptable topics dealing with homosexuality, crime and poverty. Such books as Our Lady Of Flowers, The Balcony and Querelle (later made into a film by Werner Rainer Fasbinder) were hot stuff in their time, in fact down right scandalous. But are now widely considered classics. But his one and only foray into cinema was a shocking film that started life as a bit of porn for gay collectors that eventually became an underground legend, got people incarcerated and was considered lost for years. Now thanks to this restoration from Cult Epics you can see why this film was considered so scocking in 1950.

shot completely silent, and presented that way on the DVD, the disc opens with an introduction by film historian Jonas Mekes who was New York’s premiere authority on the truly independent and avant garde cinema in the 50’s and 60’s. Mekes was among the first to see Un Chant D’ Amore in France and was wowed by its in your face visuals and stunning lyricism. Here, he tells the story of how he smuggled the print into the United States by cutting it into pieces small enough to fit into various pockets and literally carrying it through customs on his person. The film contained enough sexual content to gaurentee a federal obscenity conviction if nabbed on the way into the United States. But Mekes believed in the film to the degree that he risked showing it anyway one on US soil. he showed it in New York and was indeed arrested for obscenity for this film and Jack Smith’s queer oriented but brilliant Flamming Creatures which had a seperate screening. Mekes got off for the Genet film but got a conviction for Flamming Creatures. But Un Chant D’ Amore rightfull took its place along side Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks and Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet as personalized, underground gay cinema masterpieces. then the film was basically unseen for years.

The film itself tells the story of two men in prison. It begins with disembodied shots of an arm swinging a wreath of flowers from a jail cell window. The window next door has an arm haning out of it also who is tring to catch the flowers to no avail. Inside the swinginer’s cell is the young man of the story. Young, well built, with a tattoo on his arm (rare and dangerous in the time this was made)  he is the quintisential boy toy. He dances to himself to music we cannot hear, sexually swaying to the beat. Beyond the wall is the other cellmate who has his face plastered to the wall listening to the other boy. He is clearly obsessing over him, wanting him. A quick flash of his naked erection banging against the wall spells this out blatantly. He sticks a piece of straw through a hole in the wall symbolically trying to fuck the boy. The man blows cigarette smoke through the straw but is not rewarded with a blow back. Later he smashes food into the same hole, but is left to masturabate frustrated.

A guard is walking the halls looking into cells watching whats going on. It seems that this jail is filled with dancing gay boys as he spies several men doing just that. One black boy feverishly dancing with his cock out to some African tribal beat only he can hear. But the Guard is taken with our Boy toy hero just like everyone else. He see’s the sexual tension going on between the two prisoners and gets turned on himself.

Then we finally start getting flashbacks of their history between tablaux of the gaurd and man naked and tangled together. It seems the Boy and Man were lovers of some sort and were arrested together for being gay and put into this prison. Of course the ultimate irony being that everyone here seems to be gay as well. Especially the Gaurd who cannot handle these new found feelings, which explode into violence.

The movie is still somewhat shocking today for those who are not used to seeing male nudity. There are dicks sticking out everywhere in this movie, some of them -gasp!- erect! But this is pretty damn far from pornography as there is much more going on her than a simple attempt to arouse the veiwer. There is themes of unrequited love, loneliness, and suppression of desires all jutting out like the many penises in the film. It isn’t terribly subtle, but it is striking and sometimes beautiful all the same.

The disc is super nice, though the pciture has some damage here and there, that is to be expected from something this rare. As stated before, there is no soundtrack, so you may want to find some music of your own to play along (just kidding!). There is a commentary by fan Kenneth Anger that is nearly worthless (and I love Kenneth Anger!) since for whatever reason he had almost nothing to say about the film. For a half hour movie filled with gay themes you would have though Anger would be brimming with stories, but alass, not so much. Disc two has two documenataries about Jean Genet, both of which basically just let the man ramble on for about an hour or so and will be of interest to those who are fans of his work, but anyone else they are kind of tough going. I found the first one to be the better of the two for what it is worth. There is also a nice booklet of photos that comes with the package.

Cult Epics scores with another classic.

Here is a compilation of scenes from someone on you Tube that calls themselves DeadDemented. This is set to the music of Anna Varney (this music and compilation does not appear on this DVD.)

2008-11-05
22:39:55
Andy Copp

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