By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Lionel Baier
Starring: Khaled Khouri | Natacha Koutchoumov | Pierre Chatagny | Rui Alves
Country: france, switzerland
Year: 2006
Running time: 94
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419766/combined
Bruce says: “Unlike most gay coming of age stories, GARÇON STUPIDE is not concerned with a sexual identity crisis or gaining acceptance about being gay. Loïc (Pierre Chatagny), a twenty year old Swiss boy loves the fact that he is gay. Wildly promiscuous, Loïc has whittled away his teen years in paroxysms of lust. He finds sex everywhere he goes. To that end, he spends excessive amounts of time ensuring he is in the right place for action. Casual sex has its price – Loïc is inexperienced and emotionally distanced in every other aspect of his life.
“As it becomes easier for young men to come out of the closet it will be easier to have sex at an earlier age, and let’s face it, sexual restraint is hard to attain when hormones are raging and sex is so easy to find. The well-documented problem of promiscuity among a certain segment of the current gay population is likely to ratchet itself down a generation. Is Loïc the prototype of the new gay teenager?
“GARÇON STUPIDE opens with Loïc headed off to meet a man he has met on the web. He is surprised when Lionel (Lionel Baier) asks him a million questions but is not interested in sex. No one in Loïc’s circles has ever cared about where he was from and what he thought. In his conversations with Lionel it is obvious that Loïc has learned little about life and his knowledge of the world borders on pathetic. He is clueless.
“Loïc’s best friend is Marie (Natacha Koutchoumov) whose apartment he uses on weekends when he is in Lausanne. Marie adores Loïc. As he tells Marie the gory details of his sexual adventures she tells him, ‘I don‘t want to know.’ (His many sexual escapades are vividly captured on screen so the viewer does not get the choice of not knowing.) Marie and Loïc have a falling out and she declares, ‘I’m too old to baby sit and too young too be a mom.’
“During the week Loïc lives and works in Bulle. A semi-famous soccer player, Rui Pedro Alves, moves to Bulle and Loïc is quite
smitten as he watches Alves practice on the soccer field. When Loïc finally meets Alves things don’t turn out as he imagined. To everyone crossing his path, Loïc seems oblivious to the good advice and affection that is given him. By the end of the film he proves to the contrary. For me, the ending is a little too pat. 3.5 cats”