I have heard of this film by Chereau (who is himself a gay man) but have never seen it. Critic David Ehrenstein (also gay) thinks very highly of it, and recently contrasted if favorably with the (to his mind and mine) homophobic 1980 feature Cruising, which apparently treads similar thematic ground. Here are two pertinent comments from Ehrenstein relating to Chereau's film which appeared on the online discussion group 'A Film By':
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/47365
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/47397
Thanks for directing me to that discussion
Moremojo. The biggest problem I had with
Cruising was having to cross a picket line of friends to see it. Three times. I couldn't care less that it didn't portray the gay community in a positive light palatable to straight sensibilities. The leather scene depicted looked pretty authentic to me. I keep thinking that if a gay director had made the very same film and it was mainly screened at gay venues, that gays would have embraced it for its rawness & (sur)realism. Like I said on another thread somewhere, it was my first time seeing, on screen, some hot tough looking guys getting it on (and passionately kissing!), I loved it! The confusing story was secondary, lol!
Anyway you should definitely add
L'Homme blessé to your Netflix queue. I'll rewatch it (in its entirety) and see how it compares with
Cruising. It's definitely more real, emotionally, like so many French films I find, which makes it harder to watch. I see
Cruising as a horror-thriller while
L'Homme blessé is a character-driven psycho-sexual drama.