Johan
(1975/France/Gay/Water Bearer Films DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C+
If the
early days of full-length heterosexual erotic cinema is becoming sketchy (i.e.,
it is amazing how many people don’t know about Deep Throat, as we recently discovered) then the alternate
discourse of Gay feature film cinema outside of bold feature films (Midnight Cowboy) and Andy Warhol films
seems even more underground by comparison.
In the 1970s, America produced A
Very Natural Thing (reviewed elsewhere on this site) among others and the
French film that would be as important turned out to be Philippe Vallois’
semi-autobiographical Johan (1975)
with still-graphic sex scenes that had been cut in many versions over the
years.
Now comes
a restored version of the film that shows what all the controversy was about
and 33 years later, would still be potent enough that certain Right Wing
interests would love to ban it. Vallois
wanted to do a film about the gay love of his life, but Johan unexpectedly landed
up in prison and he had gathered the people and equipment to make the
film. No longer able to stand not making
the film, he decides to shoot it without Johan because he needs to get his
thoughts, feelings and ideas out of his system.
This
leads to a search for other men cruising and having sex, then leads to filming
other men in bars and having sex, with the goal of capturing an explicit sense
of gay contact and living. With Johan
still in prison, Vallois substitutes talking about him set to the editing of
abstract images in a French New Wave style ala Resnais, Goddard and
Truffaut. No, the film is not as good as
their best works and not everything holds up or is done well, but Johan is a key film that has many key
moments in this kind of cinema that may be more common, but is as underground
as ever.
The 1.33 X
1 image is a mix of qualities as some of the footage (especially the uncut
footage restored) is in different shape than other footage, while there is also
a mix of color and black & white stocks.
The transfer is overall on the soft side, but the materials deserve a
High Definition upgrade. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono is a little better, though it shows its age, is on the
uncompressed side. The one extra is the
half-hour featurette Secrets De Tournage with Vallois
talking about the film and the few gay-themed feature films that came before.
- Nicholas Sheffo
