[Film Review] The Delta (1996) and Passages (2023)

"The first and the latest", a double-bill viewing of a filmmaker's very first and newest features, here the subject is Ira Sachs, USA-born queer-cinema vanguard for almost 30 years.

His debut feature THE DELTA is shot in 16mm, in his hometown Memphis. Lincoln Bloom (Gray), a handsome young man from a WASP family, unsatisfied with his girlfriend Monica (Huss), secretively explores homosexuality in the shady haunts, curb-crawling in the cruise area, or loitering in the video arcades. His initial encounter with John (Chan), a gay black Vietnamese immigrant, is followed by an intimate excursion in his family's cabin cruiser. But a privileged, bi-curious Lincoln is too lackadaisical to take John seriously, their incipient transitory bond, symbolized by the evanescent fireworks, fizzles out like a damp squib.

While Lincoln can blithely revert to his normal life as if nothing has ever happened, a dejected John becomes disenchanted to his piteous status quo. He is miserable because he cannot find someone who wants to share a deeper connection than the casual carnal satisfaction with him, which induces another hookup in a gay bar to go terribly awry and the film ends abruptly on a note of shock, leaving behind some unfinished business. Could John's crime passionnel be reckoned as a spur-of-the-moment revenge to Lincoln's heartlessness (the crime scene is the same cabin cruiser, there would be some implication), and/or a radical cri de coeur to protest a marginalized life with no light in sight? But that's all THE DELTA wrote.

THE DELTA is wanting in focus, maundering in a scattershot fashion that becomes a norm in 1990s indie sphere and later the "mumblecore" in the noughties (often in default of a scintillating script and/or munificent funds). For instance, the passages depicting Lincoln's social life with his entitled friends feel wretchedly slack, totally disengaged from the film's theme. It is also not helping by the fact that Gray is a pretty but empty vase, a polite smile of condescension is his only expression regardless of what happens. However, Sachs shows more promise in his attempt to probe John's intersectionality (black, Asian, gay and immigrant constitute a gold mine, which is a rare sight). John's dialogue hews closely to the subculture vernacular and Chan pours out enough raw emotion into John's dysphoria-turned-cynicism-and-resentment, which poignantly projects a sharp political angle to elevate the film slightly above its ilks.

Sexual fluidity again plays a pivotal role in Sachs' latest offering, his eighth feature, PASSAGES, contrasting THE DELTA's grainy, low-light texture with a milky, luscious luster. An eternal triangle unfurls in Paris, a German filmmaker Tomas (Rogowski) oscillating between his husband Martin (Whishaw), a British printer and Agathe (Exarchopoulos), a local primary school teacher.

To Tomas, relationships, like his satin crop top, can be bunged off and put on at will. Getting a short shrift from Martin in his film's wrapping party, he reacts by having the hots for Agathe, who is strangely reactive in handling her affair with Tomas until the final kiss-off. After a steamy night with her, Tomas has the effrontery to flaunt it in front of Martin, he wants to make a scene, which is temporarily quelled by the latter, but a scar is opened and the damage is done.

Like KEEP THE LIGHTS ON (2012), PASSAGES continues to show Sachs's audacity in disclosing the most personal, cruelest facet of a modern relationship, the toxic symbiosis, the petty jealousy, how sex is manipulated to gain advantages over the other and the aftermath where all three parties are covered with pus-oozing wounds.

A relationship is rarely rational for an egotist like Tomas, who has no tact in concealing his feelings. Agathe is a new adventure, a possibility of fatherhood for him, and Martin is the cushy ballast where he can find shelter and warmth whenever he fancies, even a ménage à trois sounds like a perfect fit, for him that is. Only when all of these options are rejected, Tomas must face the music as a lone soul streaks on his bicycle in the City of Light, destination unknown.

In the central role, Rogowski is a marvel to behold, with his cleft lip, throaty mumbling, wiry physique and sinuousness, his Tomas is an unconventional but passionate lover one finds very difficult to resist, also Sachs's camera really loves him, sexing him up in various tantalizing angles, customarily in the buff. The sex scenes are bold and riveting, with Whishaw vehemently shattering one's preconception of the designated roles in a gay couple, which is also very fluid. As the two supporting stanchions, both Whishaw and Exarchopoulos hold on their own staunchly, even the script doesn't purvey them any chance of upstaging (still, one must hand it to Whishaw's snot for the amusement).

To my light, a major issue in Sachs's vivisection of such complicated affaires de cœur is that he has yet found an apt way to evoke strong emotion out of their banality. Too absorbed by the caprices and idiosyncrasies of his characters, he is oblivious that empathy is in short measure. No matter how true-to-life his characters purport to be, few people can be arsed to watch a film about the wages of a horrible human being doing detrimental things to others, not enough hot sex scenes can be hyped to achieve that. Alas, from THE DELTA to PASSAGES, 27 years in between, Sachs's boldness unabated, his preoccupation undeviating, however, his feet of clay is also clear as day.

referential entries: Sachs's KEEP THE LIGHTS ON (2012, 6.8/10); Yen Tan's PIT STOP (2013, 7.5/10); Hong Khaou's LILTING (2014, 7.0/10); Camille Vidal-Naquet's SAUVAGE/WILD (2018, 7.3/10).

Title: The Delta

Year: 1996

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: USA

Language: English, Vietnamese

Director/Screenwriter: Ira Sachs

Music: Michael Rohatyn

Cinematography: Benjamin P. Speth

Editor: Affonso Gonçalves

Cast:

Shayne Gray

Thang Chan

Rachel Zan Huss

Colonious David

Charles J. Ingram

Melissa A. Dunn

Erin Grills

Randall Reinke

Tony Isbell

Rating: 6.4/10

Title: Passages

Year: 2023

Genre: Drama, Romance

Country: France, Germany

Language: English, French

Director: Ira Sachs

Screenwriters: Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias

Cinematography: Josée Deshaies

Editor: Sophie Reine

Cast:

Franz Rogowski

Ben Whishaw

Adèle Exarchopoulos

Erwan Kepoa Falé

Arcadi Radeff

Caroline Chaniolleau

Olivier Rabourdin

William Nadylam

Rating: 6.7/10