Black Sheep Boy (1995)

A narrator's voice tells stories, primarily about meeting or being with boys who are almost men. As he talks, we see various boys, usually isolated on a beach, in vacant cityscapes, in ... See full summary »

Director:

Michael Wallin

Stars:

Andy Moore

Cast

Credited cast:
Andy Moore	...	Narrator (voice)

Storyline

A narrator's voice tells stories, primarily about meeting or being with boys who are almost men. As he talks, we see various boys, usually isolated on a beach, in vacant cityscapes, in rooms or in bed. They take off their jackets, shirts, shoes, and trousers; they wear white Jockey briefs. These portraits are sometimes interrupted by two or three performers who move, speak, dance, and cavort, making sport of male interactions. The narrator's stories become erotically more explicit and more introspective: he discusses Meher Baba's view of the problem of sex; he admits to wanting full control over these youths to be freed from real relationships. Fantasies evaporate.

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Plot Keywords:

youth | man boy love | experimental film | sexuality | male nudity | 

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Genres:

Short

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Details

Official Sites:

Press kit

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

37 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Non-linear narration and filmic experimentation

I had read much criticisms about Wallin's film. It is certainly a non-conventional, non-linear narration with much of experimentation going on; perhaps even excessively experimental at times.

Nonetheless that does not deny the film's value. Black Sheep Boy is a series of thoughts carefully ordained through a sequence of images focused exclusively on young men. Nakedness and full frontal nudity becomes a metaphor that elicits basic philosophical questions. The nature of Beauty, for example, as Plato's understands it, is the never-ending search of an ideal, thus the narrator of the film never ends his search for that one boy, who can only be grasped or intuited in his multiple encounters with countless nameless boys. The essence is unobtainable. And what is one's relationship to beauty? Beauty is nothing but a veil that we use to cover up the horror of mortality; according to Nietzsche beauty can be found in true art, according to Kant beauty exists because death exists, and beauty is that which reminds us of death while at the same time reaffirms our vital urges. Ultimately, death veils the real, covers and masks the certainty of death. All of this is present in the narrator's observation about life.

Black Sheep Boy however lacks the clarity that most people would look for, it can be very academic at times and this is made obvious through the constant quoting of Baba's book about "The Problem of Sex", a book that owes much of its genesis to Foucault's "Histoire de la sexualité".