STRAPPED (TLA Releasing 2010)
After my disastrous encounter with Leather Jacket Love Story which I described before (It turned out to be S&M and I threw it out in disgust as soon as I saw where it was headed.), I was afraid that Strapped would be a bondage movie. I did not need to worry.
The blurb on the box says this: "A routine trick propels a tall, dark, cynical hustler (the strikingly handsome newcomer Ben Bonenfant) into a series of life-changing encounters in this stunningly photographed drama. But this amicable and sexually efficient rent boy begins to look at himself differently when he finds himself lost in a maze-like apartment building. On his journey through the building, he tricks with a variety of johns; sex is the commodity, but out of that comes raw, unguarded emotions for all. Witty, sexy and touching, Strapped is an unforgettable look into one young man's journey to understanding."
I have watched it several times, but have not checked any reviews on-line. So these are just my own thoughts about the film.
As the hustler visits each new apartment, he looks around and talks to the trick for a few moments, and then changes his name, story and personality to fit the new situation. He tells each man that he never turns the same trick twice, but always goes on to someone new.
The entire film revolves around a verbal exchange in the second apartment. Three men sit looking at the hustler standing before them. One does not believe him and asks, "Who are you (really)? He replies with a quotation from the French writer Michel Foucault: "I am an agent of desire. Do not ask me who I am, and do not ask me to remain the same." The point is that the hustler is the agent of his tricks' desires, becoming what they want him to be in order to answer their desires. Do not ask him who he is because, as we see in his unguarded moments, he doesn't know himself--until his last encounter with the young poet. In the poem he is inspired to write after their meeting, he says his longing is aimed at the hustler and then reflected back to himself. Only now with the poet, when he finds true intimacy, does the hustler learn who he really is, and that he can at last remain the same.
This is a highly intelligent and subtle reworking of the hustler-turning-tricks plot familiar to gay films and literature. Ben Bonenfant as The Hustler does a bang-up job with the acting he must so. He is, as he tells us in the Bonus Features, a straight actor playing a gay hustler who is constantly changing personalities.
Strapped bears watching more than once. Each time you see it you will find new depths of meaning. Strapped ranks with Private Romeo as the best gay movies I have seen.
On the DVD along with Strapped is the short film Screen Test. A male model comes to a studio to be photographed. The interaction between the model and the photographer is tender and sweet, and shows what can be done with a gay film in seven minutes.
Next time I want to tell you about and recommend the Donald Strachey Mysteries, a four-film series from Here!, 2006-2008.