I have been celebrating Pride week by streaming my own Gay Film Festival. Here are the best of my recent viewings.

Philippe Besson’s 2017 novel, Lie with Me (the literal translation of the French title is “Stop with Your Lies”), is a semi-autobiographical work about looking back on one’s first teenage love. The book was a bestseller in France and appeared in English in a translation by Molly Ringwald, of all people. As someone whose young loves were all unrequited, I found Besson’s story deeply moving. Oliver Peyon’s 2022 film version, now on Prime, is a beautiful rendering of Besson’s bittersweet novel. Besson’s novel focused on the furtive teenage romance of two boys. Peyon’s film, which moves back and forth between present and past, is as much about memory and grief as it is about young love.

Successful writer Stéphane Belcourt has been invited back to his home town, Cognac, to do a book signing and to give a speech at a banquet sponsored by the distillery of the town’s most famous product. Stéphane hasn’t been back home in thirty-five years and has not been looking forward to this visit. What he remembers of Cognac is a three-month teenage love affair with another boy, Thomas Andrieu, that has been the stuff of his memories and his fiction (Thomas is the name of the love interest in Stéphane’s novels).

Stéphane was a somewhat effeminate, bookish, middle-class boy who was surprised to receive a brief note from Thomas Andrieu, a poor farmboy who seemed to be one of the straight tough guys, ordering Stéphane to a secret meeting place where the boys had their first sexual encounter. Thomas insisted on secrecy, but the boys began meeting regularly and the sex turned into a full teenage romance. Coming back to his home town unleashes all of Stéphane’s memories of his love for Thomas, and his grief and anger at Thomas’s sudden departure to work on a family farm in Spain. 

The first person Stéphane meets when he arrives in Cognac is Lucas Andrieu, the son of Thomas. Lucas now lives in Los Angeles working for the distillery and is in Cognac leading a group of American distributors on a tour. Lucas, it turns out, has engineered Stéphane’s visit in order to meet the author whose books seem to be chronicling a romance between the author and Lucas’s father, who committed suicide. Lucas is obsessed with discovering exactly what Stéphane meant to his father. The two men’s relationship begins amicably, but tension grows as Stéphane resists giving Lucas the information and closure he needs. Both men have to deal with their grief at the loss of Thomas. 

The memories of the encounters between young Stéphane and Thomas are beautifully presented. We see Thomas briefly change from a dour, frightened young man to one filled with joy during his time with his young lover; yet Thomas is always aware of the social distance between the two boys. Stéphane will leave and have a career and life away from the small town. Thomas will always work on the farm and will have to keep his sexual orientation a secret. Thomas will ultimately marry and have a child, though he reads all of Stéphane’s novels and is unhappy enough to end his life. Stéphane has never had a successful adult relationship. Thirty-five years ago, Thomas knew that being openly gay would have made him a pariah in his home town. He escapes to Spain partly because he is afraid that his romance with Stéphane will be exposed. Stéphane returns to a town where there is still awkwardness around homosexuality. 

The film tells us little about handsome, charming Lucas, other than his grief over his father’s death. How did he get from a farm to Los Angeles and become this sophisticated, English-speaking man? Like Stéphane, he got away, but he, too, seems to have no personal life. Lucas, by the way, is played by Victor Belmondo, the grandson of 1960s French film star Jean-Paul Belmondo. You can see the family resemblance. 

The flashbacks to the idyllic past of the teenage boys, the focus of Besson’s novel, are beautifully rendered. The boys experience untrammeled joy in their time together. The contemporary scenes are more complex. As the title suggests, Stéphane and Lucas do lie to each other. Stéphane is reluctant to share with Lucas details of his romance with Lucas’s father and the hurt he felt when Thomas left without any warning. Lucas at first withholds that he has already figured out Stéphane’s relationship to his father. Stéphane still is angry at Thomas’s desertion; Lucas is furious at his father for being too much of a coward to admit his feelings for other men. In a touching climactic scene, Stéphane finds a way to heal both him and Lucas.

Lie with Me is a lovely film, in many ways richer than the novel on which it is based. Highly recommended.

Cassandro (2023; Directed by Roger Ross Williams) is a fictionalized version of the life of lucha libre star Sául Armandáriz, who became known as Cassandro. As a teenager Sául, a poor gay man from El Paso, started crossing the border into Mexico to wrestle. After losing a number of matches under various names, he decided to become an exotico, a wrestler who appears in drag. Often matches with exoticos came early in the evening before the main bouts. If the exoticos wrestled straight appearing fighters, they were supposed to lose. Cassandro made history as a champion exotico and as an openly gay fighter in the macho world of lucha libre. His career lasted over thirty years.

Williams’s film about a man defying the dominant homophobia of his culture is perfect Pride Week entertainment. In the film, Sául lives with his mother, to whom he is devoted. His father left home when Sául announced that he was gay. He has an on again, off again sexual relationship with a married man who is also a luchador. 

Like his real counterpart, the Sául of the film has substance abuse problems. His success and increasing arrogance make him unpopular with most of his fellow wrestlers. By the end of the film, he has lost his mother and his lover. Still, in the world of lucha libre, he is a big star. 

Gael Garcia Bernal catches Sául’s love of performing and his need for the adulation he receives from the crowds as well as his difficulty relating to the people close to him. It is another terrific performance from an actor who has specialized in playing complex characters. Cassandro is a film about a gay man in a macho world and a macho sport who refuses to hide his gayness. 

The wrestling scenes are great fun if a bit tame by lucha libre standards. The film doesn’t mention the extent to which the wrestling matches are choreographed. 

By the way, I highly recommend the new novel, The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinosa. The book is the story of a poor Mexican, Ernesto Vega, who becomes a successful luchador. Ernesto is married but, much to his wife’s chagrin, is in love with another man, Julian. 

When Ernesto’s wife becomes pregnant, he and she move to Los Angeles where eventually he opens a gym that offers lucha libre training. Ernesto’s narrative alternates with that of his son, Freddy, and his gay grandson, Julian. 

The Sons of El Rey, one of the most powerful novels I have read recently, is the saga of three generations of troubled men. It is also a celebration of the role lucha libre has in the lives and culture of poor Mexicans. 

More Pride Week film reviews to come. It’s only Monday!