Michael

eely3.5

sad and gay are antonyms and yet here we are

noen4.0

This film is a poem of love, love that hurts, watches, takes, and waits. It has a huge delicacy and a care for its characters' souls that becomes even more admirable for having been conceived at a time when male sensitivity, and especially homoaffective sensitivity, was still solemnly ignored or repressed.Everything pulses like a slow-moving tragedy: Claude Zoret, a celebrated artist, bewitched by the one to whom he gave everything, love, sustenance and identity. However, this someone, Michael, is moved by darker interests, and little by little reveals himself as ungrateful, manipulative and empty. In this case, love is like a light that blinds, making the lover unable to see the suffering that grows inside him like a poison. Beside him, however, exists another gaze, quieter, more compassionate, perhaps even more painful: that of the one who was always present, Switt, who always loved without ever being chosen. And this invisible, sacrificial love then arises as the true protagonist, even if it never occupies the center of the frame.I place this film within a very particular group, those that dared to touch the unspeakable. Mädchen in Uniform would be one such example, films that gave early form to queer desire. This work occupies a sacred place in the history of cinema. Despite everything, these films never tried to shout, to demand, to denounce an era. They simply show — show what has always existed on the margins — depicting it in a normalized way, and in doing so, they make eternal that which time tried to obliterate.Although it's one of Dreyer’s earliest works, every frame is crafted with a remarkably mature technique. The camera contemplates everything, paying respect to the mute pain of its characters. The maturity that emanates from the mise-en-scène is astonishing; Dreyer not only builds a narrative, he delineates a state of soul. The bitterness of abandonment, the blindness of passion, the resentment that ferments in silence — all this interweaves with the external forces of greed and the naivety that ruins. And it's in this collision between the intimate and the worldly that the tragedy is fulfilled.Sadly, this film is quite forgotten in comparison to others of its time, but it survives through its theme. It's not just a romance or only a moral critique, it's an elegy to those who suffered in silence, who loved without being able to name their love, who gave without receiving in return. Dreyer, with a compassion that never escapes his aesthetic rigor, invites us to see these men not as victims, but as mirrors of our own capacity to love, even when love destroys us.If love here leads to the abyss, it's not because it's just wrong, but because the world around it has yet to learn how to recognize it. And perhaps that is why it's impossible to watch this film without feeling empathy, as if, in watching it, we are touched by something that transcends time, gender, or identity. Because in the end, as the one who watches the object of his love leave forever says, “I can die in peace now, since I’ve seen true love.”

Sally Jane Black

So this angel comes to Earth and...Oh, sorry, wrong film.I'm fascinated by ethics. I am by no means an expert, but I know an act of kindness when I see it. When I see it depicted on screen, a true, genuine, compassionate act of kindness, I get so excited. The painter Zoret's actions in repeatedly giving to the (titular) man he loves, the untouchable man in the arms of a woman, are repeated acts of kindness. While I could write a book on my pleased surprise at finding a homosexual love story in a film from 1924, I'd much rather focus on my delight at such beautiful humanity.That Zoret's love is unrequited doesn't matter. That he ignores the obvious love at his side doesn't matter. He gives and gives out of simple love, and that's beautiful. December count: 7/10.