Close from writer/director Lukas Dhont and his co-writer Angelo Tijssens was a movie I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see in a cinema because I had read the description and knew it would put a weight of discomfort on my chest, like a vice squeezing at my heart. Not something I always want to experience as part of the collective. It’s why I’d initially selected another film for this time slot at the AFI FEST Film Festival, only to realize I’d forgotten to check out, and my initial pick was gone when I returned, but Close was still available. I don’t know why it was still available, an award-winning film and Belgium’s entry for International Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards. Perhaps it was LA’s typical dislike of subtitles. Whatever it was, fate played its hand, and I experienced Close with a rapt audience. And I did indeed have that vice squeezing my heart for most of the film. I don’t think I was alone.
Close is a film about friendship, it can for sure be read as queer cinema, and was even nominated for the Queer Palm. But I see it more as a film that looks at male friendship and early presentations of toxic masculinity. Léo (played by Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (played by Gustav De Waele) have a blissful summer in a bubble of closeness. No one from their families says anything about how close they are. It’s a given that Léo will spend the night at Rémi’s. Only when they go to school, and people start to question their closeness, insisting they are a couple, does Léo try and create a distance between them.
The aerial shot, when they first arrived at school, showed the groupings of children, and it stood out to me. It was easy to see that Léo and Rémi were no closer linked than any of the pairings of girls, and that felt very deliberate. Because it is only the closeness of boys that automatically is deemed to be of a romantic nature. This is an insidious form of toxic masculinity that, as Close shows, people (boys and girls) accept at a young age to be true. So much so that Léo pushed, even fought Rémi away. To the point that he lost him forever. Boys and men should be able to be close regardless of sexuality.
Whether Léo and Rémi are queer, either, both, or neither, doesn’t matter because the other children created an environment where the perception of queerness was enough to be teased and othered. It’s why you feel for Léo, even as he’s pushing Rémi away. Even as you know where it will lead because the signs for Rémi’s suicide were laid early in the film.
Rémi’s mother, Sophie (played by Émilie Dequenne) makes a big deal when Rémi locks the door of the bathroom in an early scene right when Léo actively starts to pull away from Rémi. What we get from this scene, is that it’s a known fear, and therefore there must be a reason. Rémi, who wears his heart on his red sleeves (a contrast to Léo’s typical white), is quick to emotion. He also tries to fight for his friendship until he’s physically pulled off by teachers. I was a mess long before the scene when Léo’s mom came onto the bus to deliver the news of his death.
The young actors in Close are wonderful and I’m not surprised this film won the Cannes Grand Prix.
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