T o ne int l films remind us hy Pride

Cinematic proof that homophobia threatens millions around the world

Pride is a time to celebrate, of course, but it’s also a time to remember the struggle, and the fight that continues around the world for the right of LGBTQ people to live freely as they are. This week, the Blade takes a look at two new international releases that remind us that, for many people, homophobia still threatens millions of queer people around the world.

First up, from Italian filmmaker Pasquale Marrazzo comes “The Neighbor” titled “Hotel Milano” in Italy and available via Digital/DVD from June 6), a supremely crafted, starkly observational drama about a gay couple Riki Michelle Costabile) and Luca (Jacopo Costantini) – whose love story is blindsided by violence.

After a gay-bashing incident leaves Luca on life support in a hospital, his family refuses to let Riki come to see him – though Luca’s sister, Rachelle (Luisa Vernelli) is sympathetic enough to keep him informed about his partner’s status as he fights for his life in a medically induced coma. Between pleading with her to intervene on his behalf to Luca’s deeply religious mother (Lucia Vasini) and fending off efforts of help and comfort from his own emotionally-needy mom Rossanna Gay , he recalls defining moments of their relationship – as well as long-repressed secrets in his personal history – as he tries to come to terms, on his own, with the possibility of unthinkable loss.

In terms of cinematic weight, Marrazzo delivers in style, masterfully using flashbacks to infuse nuance as it moves the story toward what feels like an inevitable conclusion. With a shrewd eye, he hones in on the ways that shame and judgment based on “forbidden” forms of sexuality spread their poison throughout the intimate lives of everyone they touch.

Needless to say, it’s pretty bleak. Something of a spiritual sister to “Brokeback Mountain,” Marrazzo’s harrowing tale spins a harsh indictment of hate and intolerance by leaning into the familiar trope of queer victimhood – a cliché which, sadly, still rings true despite decades of advancement in the worldwide struggle for acceptance – and asking us to endure, along with its protagonists, an unthinkably harsh worst-case scenario in order to illuminate the impact of the intolerance and hate that lie behind it. It’s a movie which, had Hollywood made it, could be about the triumph of love; but devoid of that special American movie magic, and instead steeped in an Italian neo-realism that goes back to the country’s post WWII years, it offers a refreshingly unsentimental “Romeo and Juliet”-esque tale of a love that’s doomed by a mindset based in hate.

With superlative performances from Costabile and Costantini – who make the troubled Riki and the open-hearted Luca, respectively, feel heartbreakingly authentic both as a couple and as individuals – and a uniformly outstanding cast of players on hand to deliver support, it’s a power-

By JOHN PAUL KING

ful, gripping piece of cinema that avoids pandering to romanticism in order to drive home its message about the tragedies that might be avoided in a world less obsessed with judging others over our own personal beliefs, whether “deeply held” or not.

it does offer the sex appeal afforded by an impossibly hot cast of young male stars filmed mostly in various stages of undress – an enticement that sounds entirely inappropriate, but gets to the heart of the film’s exploration of once again) homophobia and its relationship with the distorted idealization of masculinity that drives it.

Set at a luxury villa in the countryside of Argentina, it follows a group of friends who have gathered for a summer holiday getaway, where the mix of drinking, drugs, and youthful testosterone results in predictably crass but relatively harmless hijinks and a few embarrassing photos, mostly driven by mockingly homophobic insinuation and ridicule; it’s all in good fun – just bros being bros, right? – at first, but as the week progresses, underlying insecurities, secrets, jealousies, and other deep-rooted by-products of toxic masculinity begin to bubble closer to the surface, and the pressure under the boys’ high-spirited, boundary-crossing hedonism begins to build toward something far less innocent.

It’s also mercilessly grim; while it both begins and ends with tenderness and positivity as its two young lovers blissfully enjoy being together in a park, it gives us an uncompromising and sometimes almost unbearably hopeless perspective on the impact a deeply ingrained, traditionally religious cultural bias can have on even the most private lives of anyone who lives outside that rigid norm. For American audiences – especially those fortunate enough to live within urban “bubbles” where the realities of anti-queer prejudice rarely interfere with our ability to live without fear of stigma or worse – that might feel like a bit of throwback; in Marrazzo’s homeland, however, where a swing toward right-wing extremism championed by nationalist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has found eager support among the country’s hard-coded Catholic population, it might seem more like a defiant plea for compassion and humanity, aimed at opening hearts and minds rather than capitalizing on the self-prophetic doom and gloom of indoctrinated queer self-loathing.

That makes it a highly recommended addition to your Pride month watchlist – but if you’re one of those people who is done with stories that turn our lives into tragedies (and we can’t say we blame you), you might want to give this one a pass despite the important truth it speaks to power.

“Horseplay” (Digital/DVD from June 13), from Argentine director Marco Berger, is hardly a more uplifting film, but

To give away more detail would undo the movie’s carefully layered revelation of detail, which makes for a fascinating study of immature masculinity and the notso-subtle social coercion that perpetuates a rigid, mostly heterosexual norm. Berger’s point, underscored by the film’s blatantly gay “male gaze” and its characters’ seeming obsession with all things “homo” as a running theme in their various harassments of each other, seems to be that the most virulent homophobia comes in people who are hiding their own queerness from the world – and probably themselves, too. It’s scarcely a new concept, but in a world where anti-LGBTQ bigotry seems to be working overtime to assert its prejudices against anyone who loves differently, it’s a helpful reminder that our enemies are motivated by small-minded fear, whatever ideological rhetoric or religious dogma they may spout at us to justify it.

Unfortunately, though Berger employs a fly-on-the-wall aloofness in his film’s scenario, much of it feels forced, weighted to lead us to a desired conclusion. The casual intimacy of ostensibly straight companions seems a little too intimate, their eagerness to “feign” sexual attraction for each other a little too eager; further undermining the effect, the large number of characters in the ensemble makes it occasionally difficult to keep track of who they are and what relationships they have with each other.

Even so, its insight into hyper-hypermasculinity and its correlation with social condition around sex and gender norms rings true, even if the same cannot always be said of what we see on the screen. And although it may, like “The Neighbor,” be a little too dark for some, it offers up plenty of “eye candy” by way of compensation so why not enjoy it?

It is Pride month, after all.