Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.
The Controversial: Sauvage/Wild
Writer/director Camille Vidal-Naquet announced himself as filmmaker with some major cojones with his controversial debut movie, Sauvage/Wild. The film caused walkouts when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. Whatever it says, but the film was also nominated for the Palm D’Or, the highest award for movies at the festival.
Sauvage/Wild follows Leo (Félix Maritaud) a French street hustler leaping from one trick to the next alongside his straight bestie Ahd (Eric Bernard). Ahd has been forced into a life of prostitution, while Leo seems to actually enjoy it, no matter how humiliating his encounters, and no matter how violent. With Ahd unable to return Leo’s affections, Leo begins a downward spiral into drugs and more violent encounters with his Johns. When an opportunity to escape to a better life presents itself, will Leo take it? Or is he addicted to a life of chaos?
First things first: the controversy around Sauvage/Wild has more to do with its scenes of graphic sex than anything else. The movie skates as close to the line between art and pornography as any film we’ve seen. That makes for an intense viewing experience, to say the least. We found the film a captivating, if perplexing work of art. By turns titillating and brutal, it’s a film as elusive as it is intriguing.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Chrisk
Great marketing. Now I want to see it.
krandall
You’re going to love it.
Invader7
Oh la la la…Some French hotties getting all sexy and beastly. I want to see the film….just to critique it for the local blog I write.. Yeah that’s it…
willward
The really controversial scene is when the prostitute goes to the home of a gay couple and is forced to take a huuuuge dildo, About a foot across, up his ass. It’s possible the scene has been cut in some streaming versions. I saw it two years ago, shortly after it came out.
WindChime
What a frightfully disgusting movie!
hugglepuffle
This movie came out two years ago and is on every streaming platform lol also not explicit at all
john.k
I saw it at a film festival when it came out. The scene willward refers to above is pretty graphic.
Ken A.
Saw it. Has lot’s of penis and hot boys but there is a story, there really is. It’s arthouse. honest and not really graphic as in porn. There are no cum shots. It’s tastefully done and the actors are very good.
ShiningSex
Great film! Why is it controversial? It’s not as graphic as made to be. It’s worth seeing.
I remember outrage when “Frisk” came out. Not that graphic and a great film too.
decampbell
Horrible movie.
WindChime
What an unfortunate movie that depicts and glorifies the depraved and the downtrodden! Do we not have many healthy and happy gay men that they can make a good movie about?
krandall
I don’t know what film you saw but Sauvage doesn’t glorify anything! It’s brutally honest and I’m sure that a lot of American evangelicals would be scandalised because of course they have never seen a penis and have never been poor.
barryaksarben
I actually HOPE you are a troll because if not you are a messed up gay. This movie in no way glorifies the sex trade. It exists and if Americans werent so perverted by the sick puritanism that has screwed up so many people we could have an honest look at sexuality in all its forms. YOU seem so overly focused on OTHER peoples sexuality. How many sex partners is to many? And more impotantly WHO are you to be the decider? I am in my 60s and have had two very long term relationships one with monogomy and one without with a lot of sexual partners, esp when I was younger before AIDS hit and it helped me gain insight into myself and what I wanted and what I didnt. It was a great learning experence. Please seek professional help – perhaps a sexual therapist
Patrick
Have you actually seen the film? I suspect that you have not, & if that is correct, then you have no business judging it.
ScottOnEarth
You obviously didn’t watch the movie. Absolutely nothing is glorified in this dark, sad movie.
krandall
I will bet they were all Americans. And I’ll also wager all my money that if this was about a heterosexual couple this story wouldn’t exist! It’s a tough and brutal look at a traumatised kid and what his neglect, abuse and poverty has done to him.
Bubbleandsqueal
What violence is to American movies, sex is to French cinema.
ptb2016
And most French actors are happy to get their kit off and wave it all about! The sex on legs Gaspard Ulliel does it as often as possible, for which I am very very grateful!
ptb2016
I found it desperately depressing and far from erotic.
gevorg
xmeet.fun – Great project for single men, who are looking for sex partner
BoomerMyles
2 other French films, Stranger by the Lake and Paris 05:59 Theo & Hugo were also pretty sexual explicit.
Viva La France!
Kangol2
As was the third film by Stranger by the Lake director Alain Guiraudie: Staying vertical.
I found Staying Vertical pretty boring despite the male frontal nudity, though.
ta2t2o
So when are they going to make the gay make escort/hooker with the happy ending? Why is it always self destructive depictions? Where’s our “Pretty Woman”?
trell
There are a lot of gay movies where men get an escort/hooker, and end up with a happy ending…..! 😉
lykeitiz
It exists. It’s called “Boy Culture”.
barryaksarben
OMG REALLY? PRETTY WOMAN? The most dishonest movie EVER. It was supposed to be ver different and not the disney version of prostitution. Ive have known a hustler or two when I lived in west hollywood in the 70s and never met any that had a happy ending.
frankcar1965
It’s very hard to believe ANY audience in Cannes would storm out unless the whole audience was American. This is Queerty that loves lascivious headlines.
Kangol2
I can believe it. Does anyone else remember the scandal around Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible, which is shocking on many levels, but includes the 10-minute simulated rape scene (a man raping a woman), and the violent gay-bashing in the gay club, with swirling camera shots? People not only walked out of that at Cannes (and numerous screenings), but also became physically ill.
Noé could not make that movie today, I think. The same with films by Jean-Claude Brisseau, early François Ozon, and others.
lykeitiz
This same actor (Félix Maritaud) is in an EXCELLENT movie you can catch on Netflix right now called “I Am Jonas”.
ScottOnEarth
It’s definitely not “Pretty Woman” but not sure why people would leave the theater. It’s incredibly depressing but not overly-graphic….unless people just have a problem with the concept of gay sex. I thought the lead actor did a great job of being totally depraved but still likable, which is not an easy task. The female doctor was my favorite character and i wish she played a bigger role.
BrokebackBob
Wound maggot repulsive.
Cam
The audience walked out on “Pulp Fiction” years ago because it was too graphic. But it ran in theaters in America with no problem.
Kangol2
Exactly. There’s a long history of this. I mean, people reportedly walked out of one of the great films (no overt sex) of all time, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura, because they were so bored and confused when it initially screened. It is now widely acclaimed as a masterpiece of global cinema.
I’m always surprised more people didn’t walk out of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, which screened in American theaters without a problem, and which was pretty shocking when it first appeared. I found it thrilling and saw it several times. It’s another film that Lynch or anyone else would have a hard time making in Hollywood these days.
chillin_b4_a_drillin
I just put a hold on it at my local public library.
Malibu Eric
J’aime ce film!!! Love this film and adore it’s star, Felix Maritaud. It is SO not near pornography. It is a glorious low budget story of a street slice of life. I have owned the DVD for ages and love it. Also, the soundtrack is fantastic. Superbe!!!
Ben_Solo
I guess I’m the only one who could guess the plot before the next sentence revealed it. Gay male sex worker gets taken in by mature gay couple. Guy turns to drugs but there’s a third party truly romantically interested in him and sees the good in him. That’s every dramatic gay TLA Releasing, Strand, Broken Glass movie from the early to mid 2000s. It’s always a drug addicted hustler with a heart of gold. Jesus Christ, I mean there are some people who aren’t that in the community. I remember watching those films after coming out nearly 19-20 years ago and how they really poorly informed me about the community I was a part of.
justgeo
And I paid to watch ‘some’ of it YAWHN so what just tired and he ain’t even clean or cute or hot enough to watch unless you like snails!
CityguyUSA
If it were a woman nothing would be hidden. Why the 2 standards?