WEEKEND: A Psuedo Review of Andrew Haigh's Film
I just got home from seeing one of the best movies of the year. And as Bret Easton Ellis tweeted the other day, Weekend was probably one of the best films about gay men ever.* I keep putting off writing about it (I saw it for the first time last weekend and again today). I couldn't even wait two days without seeing it again. Even though the movie shattered and rebuilt everything inside me, I am finding it difficult to actually express why I like it so much. It's almost too good to even attempt to tackle in a "blog" entry. But when did I ever consider Livejournal a blog? And since when did a piece of "art" so encompassing and grand prevent me from gushing about it all over the internet?
Brutally honest, beautifully real. Weekend refuses to shy away from anything. Andrew Haigh has written, directed and edited a testament about love. I hate to use a word like love because it is such a bold word and it almost connotes superficiality. I don't know if it's love these two characters are feeling for each other. Perhaps it's a film about connecting (and disconnecting) with another person in a world that can sometimes feel so isolating. It's about choosing how we open up to others. It's about identity and how we choose to live our lives. It's about two guys who meet by chance, at a bar somewhere in England who spend an entire weekend together.
Russell is the protagonist in which the camera follows around. I write "follow" because the movie is filmed in a very documentary style. Hand-held cameras, long shots with barely any editing. The scenes seem to go on forever without any cuts. This style is reminiscent of not only documentaries but also films that have been called mumblecore. Films by directors like Joe Swanberg and the Duplass brothers. Like mumblecore, Weekend is a character study. The film is more concerned with characters and their interpersonal relationships rather than plot. During most of the movie these characters don't seem like characters, they seem like real people having their lives recorded. The dialogue exchanged seems genuine; they are not speaking in eloquent prose, the conversations seem conventional and ordinary. At times they mumble and at times the sound of a bus or train drowns out their words. In this naturalistic context, the movie seems more like a documentary than fiction. And to be honest, that is my favorite kind of film. When fiction seems more real than actual reality. Through Haigh's camerawork we are spectators, witnesses if you will, to the struggles of being gay in the 21st century. When I first saw the trailer for Weekend, I originally believed the film was going to be about two people falling in love; an honest story about two guys who happen to be gay who fall for one another. Part of me wanted it to be nothing different than say Blue Valentine or All The Real Girls. A movie about two people meeting and falling for each other and how complicated that can be. Any movie regarding gay men usually end up either tragically or tragically campy (i.e Brokeback Mountain, Adam & Steve). I didn't want a coming out story, or even a coming of age story. I didn't want a movie about HIV or AIDS. I didn't want to see someone murdered by a homophobe or abused by their stepfather. Not only did I get a love story, but it was a love story that was able to encompass all of these things in a very subtle way. They were not the reason this film was made. It wasn't its thesis. The thesis is rather simple. A story about two gay men falling in love with each other and the complexities and complications that could potentially ensue. The dangers and fears of getting to know someone. The dangers of opening your heart. Like Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, Weekend documents how quickly you can fall for someone. All you really need is a weekend to get to know someone, if they are open and willing to share themselves with you.
The film opens with Russell in his apartment, going through his daily routine getting ready to attend a gathering at his friend's place. Russell is bearded, wears plaid and a pair of Nikes. He looks like half of my friends. We watch him put on his sneakers, take the bus and eventually watch him spend time with his friends while they all sit around and talk over food and drinks. These few opening scenes are uncomfortable and almost tedious. It isn't until a half-hour or so into the film do you realize why we sat through such a boring introduction to Russell. He's a homosexual man living in a heterosexual-dominated world. The friends he visits are all straight. They live in a modest house in England, throwing an informal dinner party for their friends. They're married. They have children. Russell seems distant and detached during the party. It's uncomfortable when he has to ask for an extra plate for himself twice, it's as if he doesn't speak the same language as everyone else around him who already have plates. He laughs when he is supposed to, but there seems to be this underlining loneliness, this underlining alienation. He doesn't seem consciously aware of it, these are his friends and he loves them. He's even the godfather of his one of friend's children. But there is something keeping him subdued and somber. As the film progresses you realize he's uncomfortable being himself, meaning, he's uncomfortable being a homosexual when participating in a heteronormative society. There's a scene where he tells Glen he feels most comfortable at home. When he goes out to the supermarket he's self-consious, when he goes over his friend's house he's aware that's he's different. He keeps his identity hidden and concealed. Watching Russell "live" and "work" in a world that is by default heterosexual is unsettling. He lives and breathes this "straight" lifestyle he cannot fully connect with. You don't realize why that opening scene exists so tediously until we meet Glen (and his politics). There's shame in the way that Russell lives. He keeps a part of himself hidden. As gay men we are forced into these heteronormative contexts. It isn't until he leaves the party early (telling the "straights" he has to wake up early for work) to stop by a somewhat seedy gay bar where he can be his true self. For a lot of gay men we are forced to live our true lives in the privacy of our own bedrooms, or after hours in a gay bar in town.
In an interview with Matt Singer from IFC, Andrew Haigh says, "I always quite liked the idea of everything I shot outside being from the perspective of the outside world looking at these two people forging their relationship in public."** There's a kind of shame in the way that Russell lives. He keeps part of himself hidden. During the last few scenes of the movie at the train station, all you hear over the PA is a CCTV announcement about how the station is monitored twenty-four hours a day. Closed-Circuit Television. We all participate in a public world. As viewers watching this movie, we are CCTV, documenting and watching these two men live their public and private lives. There are multiple shots of security cameras throughout the movie. These lenses have a heteronormative filter. There are security cameras all over Russell's apartment building. Just outside Russell's home, Glen hears someone calling someone else a queer outside. Unlike Russell, Glen gets up out of bed and screams out the window to the homophobic person in the courtyard. Russell fears they will throw bricks through his window. When Glen is saying good bye to Russell outside his apartment door a heterosexual couple are saying good bye near the elevator and you can see Russell's discomfit and struggle with being perceived by this couple, being viewed through this heteronormative filter.
David Hudson describes this concealed homophobia in an article on MUBI: "Did [Weekend] poignantly dramatized questions regarding sexuality remain relevant in this allegedly 'post-gay' world?… We finally realized, and mostly agreed, that the issues (if that's the right word) that Weekend raises around homosexual identification, both externally and internally, remain largely unchanged in the past few decades, regardless of any political strides made."***
We don't fear the homophobia of the past. This is a new homophobia we are dealing with in the 21st century. A concealed and hidden homophobia that will prevent equality from ever happening. It's an introverted homophobia. A homophobia, queers place on themselves. We keep part of ourselves hidden from public view. There are some of us who refuse to hold hands in a supermarket, or gently kiss the back of our partner's neck while they swipe their credit card at a drugstore check-out counter. These are all things heterosexual couples do. But for some reason, I feel as if we sometimes feel the need to censor ourselves in public contexts. There's homophobia even in our friendships. I have a "fag hag" who is one of my closest confidants. But the moment I start talking about gay sex, she cringes and wants to change the subject. I'm all ears when she wants to talk about sex, not cringing at the thought of a vagina. It's socially acceptable to talk about sex if you're heterosexual. But if you're gay, that's not something you should bring up. Posters, commercials, online ads all market heterosexual sex. These advertisements bleed heteronormativity. You'll only see queer ads in queer magazines and on queer television networks. We're still segregated, still niche, still disparate. Glen brings this up when talking about art with Russell. "Straights will go see photographs of refugees, murder, or rape, but gay sex? They would never. It has nothing to do with their world," he explains. "The only people who would come see an art opening about gay sex are the gays, and they are only there to get a glimpse of a cock."**** As "post-gay" as we think we are, with the passing of gay marriage in states like New York, we still have a long way to go. It's as if we're still in the closet. Or perhaps it's not the closet we're stuck in, it's our bedrooms. We need to step out of our bedrooms and live the public lives that every other heterosexual lives. That would be true equality.
Glen is unlike Russell in every way. He's an extrovert. His queerness is political. He lives his life as genuine as possible, completely aware of the heteronormativity around him but refuses to let that deter him away from what he believes and what he feels. He will kiss Russell at a straight bar. He will kiss him on a train platform. There's a scene where he vividly (and loudly) narrates a story about a guy he slept with that told him to lick his boot. He's in a straight bar. A few straight patrons at that bar found his story offensive and loud and pick an argument with him about it. But a few scenes earlier we see Russell's coworkers talking about how many fingers they can fit up a woman's vagina. It's a double standard and Glen is aware of this. He tries to explain to the bar patrons that heterosexuality is inherited into the world around them. Through books, movies, television, advertisements. In an earlier scene with Russell in Russell's apartment, Glen goes on to pontificate this same idea. "We must conform to their [heterosexuals] liking," he says. "We must not upset the straights." He goes on to say that in this post-gay world we have the opportunity to build our own world with slings, bottles of poppers, gardens, etc. We can cement our own identities now, if we all disregard what "straights" might think. Glen is our hero. Glen is Russell's hero. Russell is aware of all this homophobia and is inspired by Glen's politics.
After meeting at a bar, Russell takes Glen home with him. They wake up the next morning and Glen pulls out a tape recorder and asks Russell to talk about their evening together. He wants to know what he thought at the bar (that he was out of Glen's league). He wants to know his version of their meeting. He wants to know his retelling of what happened in bed that night. Glen is working on an art project that is about gay sex. He explains that every new person we sleep with is a "blank canvas" in which we project ourselves onto. With these recordings of past lovers, you can see the distinction between what people aspire to be and who they actually are. Glen thinks this space between this ideal and our actual reality is where we're most honest about ourselves and this space can help us realize what it is that is holding us back from being the person we want to be. It's rather eloquent and charming. Like the security cameras documenting public spaces, here is Glen with his tape recorder documenting private spaces. Haigh is doing the same thing with his camera. These tape recordings are documenting the private lives of gay men. One of Glen's goals is to somehow use these recordings in an art project that would be presented, displayed, and "framed" in the larger public world. Glen understands that gay men need to document these stories, these narratives. We need to build our own histories. We need our own fairy tales that coexist with the Disney narratives we all grew up on. He's documenting this concealed homophobia (that happens within ourselves and mainstream society). He's helping us to leave our bedrooms and lead our lives like any other person on this planet.
Along with all these queer politics there is a love story so genuine and so real in Weekend. The morning after dialogue is so authentic. It's heightened because of Glen's art project which inquires about heavy issues, but we only have two days to spend with these two characters and it's a brilliant writing device to get to know these characters quickly. They are laying around in bed in just their underwear making silly jokes and asking serious questions. Russell defaults back to the usual post-hook-up conversation, "So did you like the club?" and once he realizes how ridiculous that question was after looking at Glen he laughs. He struggles, like everyone else does, to be real, to keep things off the surface, still unsure if he should open his heart or not. There's this delicate dynamic you have with yourself. What to share and what not to share with a stranger who is in bed with you. Glen asks to see Russell's armpit and Russell refuses. Glen spills a little coffee on the blanket. Glen stares into Russell's eyes and Russell gets uncomfortable thinking he has something on his face. The smile that disrupts his panic seems so genuine. An unwritten rule. Don't brush your teeth in the morning if the other person hasn't. Or his breath will smell of "cock and bum" and yours is minty fresh. The distancing when exchanging numbers. The awkwardness of not knowing if you're overstepping boundaries. Invites to get drinks with their friends. Buying a potential boyfriend a beer when you don't know they don't like beer. Hooded sweatshirts and baggy jeans. Russell is a lifeguard at the community pool. A hairy gay couple wipe each other with towels and Russell looks on while he struggles with the first text message he sends Glen after their night together. An ellipsis or an emoticon. Irish good byes at your own going away party. Glen's fag hag not being supportive and Glen forcing Russell to spill what he thinks of her. The sound of the bus's engine drowns out part of their conversation. They walk through a carnival and ride the bumper cars. Russell thanks the ticket clerk so genuinely. Pulling cotton candy out of a plastic bag while Glen describes how he was outed. A mate walks in on Glen while he's jacking off to a scene from A Room with a View he paused with Rupert Graves cock shuttering on the videotape. Glen speaks of cement and concrete. He wants to live a life of fluidity but his friends and acquaintances won't let him be any other version of himself. "I'm trying to redraw myself and everyone keeps hiding my fucking pencils," he exclaims. Russell thinks he's running from something. Perhaps the ex-boyfriend that Glen's fag hag was telling him about. The one that cheated on him countless times. The one that got mugged in the park while he was cruising for sex. With magnetic letters Glen spelled out F A G G O T on Russell's oven. When Glen leaves he scrambles the letters away. Further explaining Russell's introverted homophobia. Earlier, Russell explains that he hates "new things" after Glen says it looks like his kitchen raided a charity. Russell speaks about the history of the teacup he's drinking from and how it was probably an 80 year old woman's cup whose grandchildren got a hold of when she died. Since they like new things they threw it away. Russell yearns for a sense of history. As a child who grew up in foster care he never met his parents. This also means he missed a proper rite of passage for gay men. Coming out to your parents. He becomes obsessed with coming out stories. He documents his past lovers coming out stories. He explains this to Glen and Glen says, "Is it bad that I find the orphan thing kind of hot?" They both laugh. "Are you getting off on my childhood tragedy?" And they start making out. Shirts come off. One of the sexiest sex scenes ensues. So real. So honest. Just two men making out on top of each other. Kissing while jacking each other off. Glen gets a towel to clean up the cum that is splattered all over Russell's stomach. Glen and Russell leave the going away party and proceed to have more drinks at Russell's place. They start doing lines of cocaine and opening up to each other more and more. Russell, the romantic doesn't understand why Glen doesn't want a boyfriend. He calls him a teenager when he says that gay marriage is "feeding into the system." "You want people to think independently but when they don't agree with you you get upset," Russell says before storming off to the bathroom. He wipes away tears in the mirror and pulls out a joint he had saved in his wallet. Music is scarce throughout the film and a song is playing when Russell walks out of the bathroom. The song makes the scene. Glen is staring out the window because he thought he heard a firework. They share the joint and Russell caresses Glen's hand on the windowsill. The argument is over. Glen pretends to be Russell's dad so he could "come out" to him. Glens says the most beautiful thing as his dad. He said everything we wished our parents said when we told them we were gay. Pillow talk, cuddles, then sleep. The next morning Glen is leaving for Portland, Oregon for two years for an art program. It's Russell's goddaughter's birthday. In rom-com fashion, Russell's good mate suggests he go to the train station Glen is leaving from. In retrospect, I find it quite interesting that a heterosexual male suggests this, as if he is well-versed in rom-com narratives. It's a very heteronormative thing to suggest. Russell shows up, like the romantic he is. He's not there to convince him to stay, he's there to wish him luck and say good bye. The farewell between Russell and Glen is shot from a distance, through a fence. Like a surveillance camera. The CCTV announcement is played every few minutes. It reminds us, that we're viewers, looking from a distance, like mainstream heterosexuals view gay couples, from a distance. As they talk, we hear nothing but the sounds of the train station. It isn't until the camera slowly zooms in on the couple, that we hear the dialogue. We're no longer watching from a distance as a surveillance camera would. Russell, the one who wouldn't kiss Glen in a straight bar is now reaching in for a kiss in this very public place. We're right there with them. We hear heckling from the distance. Someone whistles like some people do when people kiss. A stranger. I'm not sure if the word queer or faggot is actually said but Glen tells Russell to ignore them and he kisses him again. For the first time, this gay couple is making their private life public, just like any other heterosexual couple would.
It's a heartbreaking scene and you wonder what will happen in their future. Will Glen be lonely in Portland and come back to Nottingham? Their romance was quick and extraordinary. Intense and beautiful. Weekend leaves the ending ambiguous. Not every romance has an ending; not every love expires. Not only was this an impassioned love story with intoxicating highs and lows, it was also a film about identity politics. We're all on a quest to figure out who we are and what we want from life. We're all looking for blank canvases to project ourselves onto. Perhaps Glen is right. Maybe the answers are in that space between the ideal/projection and who we actually are. Sex. Maybe the answers are in post-coital pillow talk. We might just need a tape recorder to remind us of that. Or a Glen in our lives to make us question things and be proud of who we are. Or we might need a Russell in our lives to remind us that people can be romantic without the superficial sentimentality. To remind us that people are capable of love and creating a life with someone else.
Click to view*Notice I (and Bret Easton Ellis) did not call Weekend a gay film. It's rather a film about gay men. It's a film about two people meeting and falling (or not) falling in love. Two people who meet and spend a weekend together. This could have been any two people in the world. Male, female, black, asian.
**http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/09/andrew-haigh-weekend-interview.php
***http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/andrew-haighs-weekend
****For the record, any quote from the movie is me paraphrasing. Some are exact quotes I picked up on on my second viewing.