His mother's lover
A bene placito. For your pleasure.
The introduction to Nica Noelle’s gay studio debut could not have been more pertinent. Set in 1930s Britain, His mother’s lover (Rock Candy Films, 2012) approaches taboo subjects revolving around fatherly figures and their impact on a young man’s identity and sexuality.
The plot presents young Robert (Chase Austin) and his desire for men under an array of authoritative figures: an older student, the school headmaster’s, his own brother, his absent father. The movie opens with a classroom scene in an all-boy school, and Robert being observed – and observing – an older student (Travis Irons) who, within moments, brushes past Robert on his way outside. Preceded by a somewhat labyrinthic chase between the two boys on school’s grounds, the first sex scene in a storage room is silent and clean, with beautiful lighting and setting, and the cinematography makes it so cocks are veiled by school uniforms eventually, adding a perk to any school boy fantasies the viewer might have. The boys are caught by the school’s headmaster (Ian Whitcomb) who, although stern, seems sympathetic and understanding of Robert’s misdemeanor, actually spoon feeding Robert with a heat of the moment, judgment impaired youth, crime of passion alibi – maybe because of Robert’s resemblance to his deceased father, who was one of the headmaster’s favorite students. Excluding expulsion, Robert’s punishment is set at a 4-week suspension for truancy and a flogging – something which clearly delights the headmaster and appears to be more a warning for secrecy than punishment for a wrong act.
Robert is the perfect student, his mother’s rock, never in trouble. The mysterious counterpart to Robert is his brother, Jeremy (Xander Corvus), a painter who drowns on alcohol and surrounds himself with nothing but his work. The shadiness that belongs to Jeremy is in direct contrast with Robert’s openness and forwardness, sketching his father as somewhat an amalgam of both or, in other words, as fluctuating between Jeremy’s darkness and Robert’s innocence. Whether his father’s death had been suicide – as Jeremy believes - or as the result of an accident does not seem to disturb Robert; he conscientiously chooses one side of the story and does not seem disturbed when Jeremy contradicts his version with a reminder that he had been the person who found their father dead.
Robert is sent home on suspension and meets his mother’s fiancé, Daniel (Boston Miles) – to whom he will instantly be attracted. Daniel has come into the family’s life as a rescuer for a lost mother, who “never dreamed that anyone would love (her) again”. He stands as balance point between the family and Jeremy, constantly excusing the young man’s behavior and attempts to be the rudder in a family shattered by the loss of the patriarch under suspicious circumstances. To escape the notion that the father should be exclusively the carrier of the law, Lacan always claimed that a father as a legislator or pure authority with no desire usually has devastating effects on the subject (ŽERJAV: 2010, 214). Desire, here, will manifest in Daniel primarily as a care taker and only after in a sexual manner towards Robert, thus protecting him from authoritative fatherly impositions. This is pivotal for the change in Daniel’s positioning which Robert will promote later.
The similarities between Robert and Daniel are pointed out by the mother, who unintentionally generates space for association and transference by both Robert and Daniel. While the first clearly sees his soon-to-be-stepfather as a prerogative to a fatherly figure – one which is closer to him than his own taller, stockier, “a bit more manly” father was – Daniel is able to reconstruct his fantasies with the Russian prince by transmuting Robert into an Alexei he is able to keep as a secret, care for and save, therefore restoring his own fatherly function. While we have no access to how the process unravels for Daniel, Robert’s dream – in which he witnesses a professor and a younger student having sex in the bathroom and, later, transmuting into himself and Daniel – makes explicit the associations between authoritative function, power, sexuality and transference he is delineating in order to establish Daniel’s position in his own psyche. The camera work in this sequence, it is worth mentioning, makes for a Robert who grows from boy to man, with angles which project him bigger and taller – while positioned as observer – towards the end of the scene.
Freud’s Oedipal archetype of the father as the holder of the (metaphorical) phallus – which would state order and the dissociation necessary for the identification into the binary male vs. female dichotomy – is here replaced by the Lacanian concept of Nom du Père, and his tripartition into a real, a symbolic, and an imaginary father. It is in this paternal metaphor that the key to Robert’s mind can be found. The Name-of-the-Father as the signifier that replaces an initial maternal one in the symbolic could never take place within Robert because his father had never been named – and here I mean both metaphorically and literally – turning Robert into an enigma which can only be solved by the Name-of-the-Father as constrictive signal posts to his proper identification as a grown man.
It is not by chance that Robert’s father’s name is only mentioned in the movie to establish the mother’s psychological state (“God, I’m so lucky to have you. When Clarence died I thought I’d be a widow for the rest of my life; I never dreamed that anyone would love me” – my emphasis). This lack of the father is the basis on which Robert’s story is going to be told. It is not by chance, either, that Robert himself has to refute the need for a father in order to reach/be reached by Daniel: “I am a grown man myself” – a reminder that the paternal metaphor can only be read retroactively, therefore proving itself worthless had it placed Daniel as a symbolic father figure. This will unravel into the first sex scene in which Robert does not wear a school uniform, which means he is no longer a boy.
Robert is not in conflict with his sexuality: Robert is in conflict with himself or, rather, struggling to find identification outside of himself. It is only when he is able to map out his own identity after dismissing a fatherly figure that his conflict is solved. Ironically, the same act that frees Robert eliminates the need for Jeremy’s existence, as he stands no longer as a nemesis/mirror to his brother.
As is it common to all Noelle’s productions, there is obvious thought put on light, setting, costume and editing. His mother’s lover delivers a solid, well-constructed plot, presented by fairly good performers and fluid, artistically-built sex scenes. The key elements to Noelle’s repertoire (a more emotional seduction, long foreplay, intense kissing) are all present in this new line, and generates as a result what might be called a more romantic approach to gay male pornography without, however, feminizing it. The movie brings as treats an unforgettable headmaster played by Ian Whitcomb – who also composed the soundtrack, a delight in itself – and Magdalene St. Michaels, in a delicious performance embedded in 1930s candor and sheer sweetness.
A bene placito can also be used in musical conducting: it allows for a more relaxed, freer mode of playing, something which would lead an orchestra into appreciating the sounds it is generating. Noelle herself is basking in the results of her work. As she is entitled to.
- Published December 8th, 2012