I’ve always found it frustrating to express stupid feelings to other gay guys from former Yugoslavia, since even though our languages are mutual, these conversations are always in English. Our shared languages seem unable to adequately express emotions that transcend their heterosexual boundaries. I used to think that this might be a modern problem, as younger generations of people who lived in Yugoslavia are moving away from their native languages in favor of the universal English. However, when I visited the first cinema of Yugoslavia, I found this phenomenon, which I named. .‘linguistic paralysis’, which will be an important game even for films that are not common in the region.
Fifty years ago, Slovenian novice (and openly gay) director Stanko Jost tackled this problem in his film. Boys (Boys), the first Yugoslav film with gay characters. The film, which until regional voices such as those of the critics Jasmina Šepetavc and Sebastijan Ozmec were revealed, risked staying in perfect reach. Set on time 1970s in a Slovenian boarding school, it follows the relationship between roommates Zdenko and Nani as they fall in love. Noted for borrowing earlier tropes from Slovenian homoerotic cinema such as František Čáp’s 1964 Tovarisi (Comrades), Jost envisions his characters as virtual doubles .‘queer genres. Zdenko is what Šepetavc calls it .“a sad young man” who is always shown in a mentally fragile state, and Nani, a tall, awkward but beautiful bloke, whose hair captures the film’s sometimes angelic natural light. Mauriceor even Call Me By Your Name.‘a self-discovery image of youth. But despite being a common love, Boys it feels unique to its location and I can’t point to a real Western equivalent.
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Based on shame 1938 a novel by Slovenian author France Novšak, the film charts the boys’ relationship from their first meeting, to their first kiss, to their final breakup. Although there is no titular .‘boy’ cannot fully express their desire for another, Jost does not allow them to abandon their native language to express their feelings. Instead, he created a different visual language made up of symbols of love, his camera lingering on boys sharing oranges, gently touching each other’s hands, or showing affection for each other’s body.
A nationalized film industry as of late 1960the sexual revolution provided contexts in which topics such as homosexuality could be freely addressed in Slovenian film. Five years earlier BoysBoštjan Hladnik’s Maškarada (Masquerade) displayed unusual sexuality in a scene depicting the seduction of the son of an upper-class family at a debauched party. Jost took the fact that queer sexuality could be shown on screen in Slovenia and instead of a sex scene, he produced a teenage love story. Although you have to support yourself Boys and, as Šepetavc follows the trail, endures daily police checks on time, Jost portrays the boys’ love with incredible sincerity. By alternating close-ups of their faces and contrasting images focused on their eyes or mouths, he renders the inner worlds of Nani and Zdenko’s emotions visible without words, making Boys an incredibly lovely watch.
Like the unspoken desire between its titular characters, Boys it opens appropriately quietly with a shot of a concrete-encased pool. It immediately takes me back to the gray spring morning I spent holding my grandmother’s hand as we walked to the market together in my little native Belgrade. Despite being heavily concentrated in Slovenia, Boys.‘The common world of everyday pictures touches me even though I come from a different place in the former Yugoslavia. In one early scene, where we are introduced to Nani’s mother, I can feel the smooth suede-like texture of her coat and I can’t help but long for a sense of belonging to Jost’s alternative Yugoslavia.
Unable to talk about their desire to be there, Jost fills Zdenko and Nani’s silence with gestures. Opening his suitcase after meeting Zdenko for the first time, Nani pulls out an orange, the camera lingering on this fruit of desire as if it were something illegal. Quickly zooming in on Zdenko’s eyes, Jost cut the oranges that were being carried lightly and exchanged ritually from one boy to the other. Their touch is the same as their hands touching for the first time.
It may be pure coincidence, but true oranges are ubiquitous Boys it feels uniquely Slovenian. By 1975experimental cinema flourished as a counter-cultural movement and a major hippie production company OM Produkcija had already established the beauty of hand-held shaking and that mysterious leap. Boys later it will soften. Last year, OM released Pomaranča ali kozvív vpliv drog na mladino (Orange or Harmful Influence of Drugs on Youth)a film about climbing and putting an orange in the oven. Although it is possible that Jost never met this film, as a hidden desire of Nani and Zdenko OM being operated on in secrecy, and it seems appropriate that he should once again use the orange as a symbol of irrational provocation and one that expresses the tender love of youth.
