The Blue Hour
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B-
Theo (Andreas Herder) is a male hustler who is living next
to a possibly interested woman (Dina Leipzig) and her oblivious boyfriend, both
who are unaware of his “profession” in The Blue Hour (1991), a German
drama about the young man and his crisis that has more to do with uncertainty
than sexual identity. Marcel Gisler’s
film is never sexually graphic, but is suggestive in ways that do not distract
form the narrative.
The place is Berlin and Theo is helping the “loneliness”
go away for various clients, some of whom are more interested in just looking
at him. He takes proper precautions to
not have any kind of trouble (abuse, arrest) and things go smoothly, which
might be the trouble. These are cold
meetings and though he remains courteous and is unusually able-bodied for such
a character in film, he is bored and starts to become involved with Marie
(Leipzig). She’s bored too, stuck at a
record store job she is very unhappy with.
He does not deny his gayness, bi-sexual or not, but simply cannot stop
the changes he starts to feel about his life and that he knows he has to do
something to not go into decline. He
could continue to do this well-paying “profession” and he has no end of clients,
but the pointlessness is starting to get to him and it will affect all around
him.
I was impressed by the mature nature of this film, as most
of them would play up the sex and this would get melodramatic, but Gisler is
smarter than that and the film benefits.
The problem is that the explorations are limited and it becomes some
kind of mood piece. It is not trying to
imitate any other filmmaker, but feels incomplete and leaves too much not dealt
with. The actors are all good and their
work is convincing. I like the
location. The film does not hit any
serious false notes. It only runs 87
minutes, but more length could have made this much more compelling.
The letterboxed 1.66 X 1 frame is aged and has all kinds
of scratches and artifacts on it. Subtitles
are burned in and the color is fading.
That’s too bad, because this is a good-looking film and was lensed by
cinematographer Ciro Cappellari and captures a very real Berlin without trying
hard. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is
basically monophonic and is not bad for its recent age, even if you do not know
German. There are no extras, but a
trailer for Fogi Is A Bastard plays before the film beings.
- Nicholas Sheffo
