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Title: Like a Brother (2005)
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Cast
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Benoît Delière | ... |
Sébastien /
Zack
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| Johnny Amaro | ... |
Bruno
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Thibault Boucaux | ... |
Romain
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Adeline Ishiomin | ... |
Marine
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Amandine Maugy | ... |
Sophie
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Michel Derville | ... |
Le père de Sébastien
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Gaëtan Borg | ... |
Laurent
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Patrick Esilva | ... |
David
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Jean-Christophe Bouvet | ... |
L'admirateur
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Christian Guidicelli | ... |
L'homme du métro
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Storyline
Sebastien is a small town boy who moves to Paris and begins to explore the gay night life there. When a friend from back home calls to announce he's coming to Paris, Sebastien confronts some unrequited feelings.
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Details
Country:
FranceLanguage:
FrenchRelease Date:
10 June 2005 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
Like a Brother See more »Company Credits
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Bernard Alapetite & Cyril Legann's film is allocated in two distinct moments: the present in which we catch a glimpse on young Sébastien's life, and the past, which sets the basis for everything he is experiencing now.
Why is it the past so important for most of us? Surely it's not only because we tend to have a glorified memory of years gone by. The past, after all, can sometimes fully define us if we manage to comprehend it. In the present, Sébastien is going to gay bars and hooking up with guys, but in the past only one boy occupied his every thought: his best friend Romain.
When Sébastien is alone, he draws Romain's body in a piece of paper. Here, the image is clearly the ideal and thus the unobtainable object. One moment exemplifies this assertion perfectly: when the two boys are lying in bed together, watching TV, the muffled sound of pornography coming from the background arouses Romain enough for him to fondle himself knowing that his friend is right there; as he proceeds to go to the bathroom Sébastien follows him and watches carefully how his friend masturbates frenetically. Except that he doesn't see his friend's facial expressions of joy, but rather his image reflected in the bathroom's mirror.
Why is the mirror important? For Jacques Lacan a relationship between the specular and the non-specular exists. The individual does not have direct access to the real of his body, it's only through the virtual image in the mirror plane that one gains such access. Although this indicates the necessary interposition of the Other, the Other of language. When Sébastien is looking at himself during the first minutes of the movie, his only concern is his physical appearance, and it should rightly be so as he intends to expose himself to the gaze of the other. This paradigmatic scheme is the foundation of narcissism, in which one's psychic energies are invested in one's own image thus making it lovable (for others).
But is the protagonist narcissistic? Every time Sébastien practices sex with other men he let his himself being penetrated; thus complying with what most people would label a "passive" position. There is, however, one instance in which he plays a most active role, and that is when he spends the night at Romain's place, and starts touching him and caressing him.
If Sébastien is truly narcissistic then the recognition placed upon himself by others would be undermined by a certain 'deceptiveness', because narcissism tends to mask the fact that I perceive myself from the Other's point of view. When Sebastian spies on his friend, draws him or thinks of him, he is indeed circumscribing himself into the sphere of the other's desire; and should he come to the conclusion that the other is no longer there to support him, then the first steps towards narcissism will be taken.