You and the Night is a film about living, throbbing sexuality, beginning with a brush of death.Ā
byĀ Patrick Cash
We find the beautiful Matthias with his life ebbing away, his impassioned female lover roaring him on a motorbike through the dark night, until they meet their effeminate male maid. ‘Quick,’ says the female lover, āwank him off and get him hard!ā The effeminate maid shoves a hand through Matthiasā flies, begins enthusiastically wanking away, and sure enough, Matthias is returned from the brink.
I have to admit I was initially watching this in clutched-pearls artistic shock, spitting out my chicken nuggets and being like āis this film for real?ā to the cat. But black humour propels much of this fascinating film along, a lot like a whirring hand around a hard cock. When I spoke to director Yann Gonzalez, hailing from the South of France and a former film critic, he confirmed that āitās very important to get viewers on your side from early on with laughter. I make films that I want to see. A lot of people said āis this humour unintentional?ā and of course itās not! Itās very deliberate.ā
The main plot centres around a sex orgy being organised in an anonymous Parisian apartment. Characters rock up as representatives of sexualityās different facets ā the Stud, the Slut, the Star, the Teen ā rather than fully formed emotional entities. Yet this works with the overall concept, given that Yann says the film is ā80% fantasy, 20% own experienceā. It has an almost Sartrean feel to the action, as the characters lurk, lust and prowl around one another trapped within four walls; albeit weāve never seen Eric Cantona get splattered in the face with flying vaginal fluids in āNo Exitā.
Yann wrote the film after reading the diaries of scandalous 1920s French socialite Mireille Havet. A friend of gay playwright Jean Cocteau, openly lesbian herself, and a notorious drug addict, she died at the age of 33 after living her remaining years jacking hotels without paying the bill. In one of these hotel rooms she left her unfinished novel; the tragic romanticism of her life, combined with the open sexual lyricism of her writing, would be an inspiration upon Yannās script.
āThereās lots of literature in the film,ā he says, and indeed the charactersā various vocalised fantasies and histories, lend much to this impression. When not furiously wanking each other off, or begging to see Cantonaās (āThe Studā) gigantic genitalia ā which is definitely shown at one point, boys, be it prosthetic or not ā, they tell stories of how their relation to sexuality began, which are played out on the screen. One is caught in a cage with a whip where the polarities of masculine and female power subvert by turns; another crawls through a corridor of beautiful naked bodies; The Teen tells of how he uses his youth and his experimentation to aid him in living on the streets, by using both men and women.
Within these walls, sexuality dissolves its rigid constructs of āgayā and āstraightā and becomes a fluid slipping between skins with as much ease as the characters exchange bodily juices. Itās an intriguing experiment to watch, and ultimately produces an odd but, dare I say it, quite heartwarming solidarity between the group. When two straight, aggressive males visit the flat looking for The Teen, bringing with them their outside social constraints, they begin to homophobically abuse the effeminate maid. One of the women comes to his aid, to protect him from their divisive dynamics.
Ultimately, Yann says, he wants this film to be an artwork of hope. It begins with death for a reason, and heās not afraid to visit that ātabooā in many of the main plotlines; yet since Shakespeareās time sex and death have been intertwined, when to orgasm was referred to as āto dieā. But I donāt think itās giving too much away to say that the final image is one of great positivity, of a sun rising. And you may finish this extraordinary film remembering your own forgotten fantasies, a reminder that you are still very much alive and sexual.
ā¢Ā You and the Night is out on 3rd October at the ICA Cinema, The Mall, SW1Y 5AHĀ