There appears to be strange, insidious brand of conservatism permeating the culture. Far removed from Silicon Valley-funded reactionary wannabe bohemians, whose broader cultural impact is negligible in spite of the onslaught of think pieces they’ve inspired, culture-industry conservatism has frequently also come papered over by the language and gestures of American progressivism. The result is a cinema of jargons, of easy declaration. A cinema devoid of mystery or even faint surprise, frequently dogmatic, moralistic, and, crucially, lacking the conviction that has made some more fiery dogmatic pictures work in the past.
Wading through discourse regarding representation — the oft-noted importance of marginalized voices is agreeable to all but the most odious of reactionary actors — too often arrives at the center of the labyrinth only to find yet more hidebound traditionalism. Nonetheless, our filmmakers (and many artists in general) still make use of what is frequently associated with a more liberated cinema: accusations of prudishness are countered with sex scenes, accusations of literalism are countered with tacked-on symbolism. But any given text operates on different levels; sex scenes do not preclude prudishness, last-ditch ambiguity does not preclude predictability. In these cases, puncturing the membrane is the critic’s job, or rather it would be because so few are willing or able to do so, often all too happy to get swept up in excitement or pacified by superficiality.
Max (Ruaridh Mollica), the main character of Mikko Mäkelä’s queer drama Sebastian, seems to run counter to a lot of protagonists we come across in discourse-friendly fare like this — at least at first. An aspiring writer, he spends most of his free time either working on his debut novel or listening to interviews of his idol, Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis’ bad-boy bona fides are well-established, and Max himself wouldn’t be out of place in one of his novels: young and blessed with twinky good looks that are on the cusp of fading, he has all the makings of an Ellis side character who is sexually ravaged and quickly disposed of (literally or figuratively).
Max’s literary ambitions, his search for something “real” (or at least worth writing about), has navigated him into the world of sex work. Meeting (usually older) men for sex through an online escort service, his carnal encounters are usually followed by intense writing sessions where he cribs from his experiences pretty much verbatim, revealing a remarkable truth in the process: this is not a film about queerness, the nature of sex work, or culture as, in the words of Sam Kriss, a site of production of social reality; this is a film about the breakdown of the human imagination in the age of the Internet, while simultaneously being a product of that very same breakdown.
Mäkelä’s characters either already have or are, one after another, slowly surrendering to the social scripts and limits on thought that are being imposed on them by the cultural moment. A moment that illustrates this well: when complaining about his editor’s notes on his novel’s pages, Max’s friend Amna (Hiftu Quasem) doesn’t encourage him to follow his vision but rather to “listen to the people who have done this a hundred times before and are giving you this opportunity.” With friends like these it’s maybe not a huge surprise that what little of his prose we get to hear isn’t exactly Faulkner, nor does is approach anything resembling the eerie minimalism of his beloved Ellis.
Max eventually spirals, getting lost in a swirl of pushy and violent clients, drug use, and emotional isolation. He finds some solace from Nicholas (Jonathan Hyde), a client who stands out for his lack of desire for instantaneous sexual gratification, something the gratification addict Max can’t wrap his head around. This does, however, influence his work in ways that displease his editor, who scoffs at the love story which, unbeknownst to her, corresponds exactly with the events of the young author’s life. Ridiculously, she adds, “You’ve mastered the short story. But this is a novel… it is a different beast entirely,” betraying a frankly startling ignorance of the art and tradition of short fiction (especially coming from a literary editor), never mind the fact that there is pretty much nothing in life or literature that one can “master” after only 25 years on God’s green earth.
There is a metatextual element at play that attempts to lampshade the film’s shameless use of tropes frequently found in fiction centered on queerness and/or sex work — the editor’s critique can’t help but come off as a critique of the film itself — but, of course, this can’t replace new ideas and instead dooms Sebastian to a cynicism that feels contemporary or current only in its unaware regressiveness. The explicit sex, all the talk of crossing boundaries… none of it feels real, lived in. In the age of confessional songwriting and autofiction, autobiography has become the presumed default, one to which Sebastian appears to adhere. But, given what’s put to screen here, it’s hard to imagine Mäkelä being familiar with this subject matter through anything other than second-hand accounts.
DIRECTOR: Mikko Mäkelä; CAST: Ruaridh Mollica, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Hiftu Quasem, Lara Rossi; DISTRIBUTOR: Kino Lorber; IN THEATERS: August 2; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 50 min.
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