My final Pride Week film selections are European films that take place in the countryside, focusing on the loneliness and anguish gay men experience when there is no supportive community, only hostility—where the closet is a necessary defensive stance. This is particularly true in countries that are officially opposed to homosexuality. Can there be a happy ending for gay people in such places?

LIUBEN (2023, Directed by Venci Kostov)(Prime) has been heralded as the first gay-themed film to be produced in Bulgaria. Actually, Venci Kostov, the director, has spent his career working in Spain and the film is a Spanish-Bulgarian co-production. Set in a small village, LIUBIN deals with both homophobia and prejudice against Roma people.

Twenty-something Victor has come back to his father’s village for his grandfather’s funeral. When his parents separated twelve years before, Victor went with his Spanish mother to Madrid where he is in an unsatisfying relationship with a man his father’s age. Victor’s father craves a relationship with his son. He has even built a house with a floor for Victor if he ever chooses to come home. The father’s all-male social group includes a racist, corrupt policeman. Victor seems emotionally withdrawn, more a passive observer than a person in control of his life. After the funeral, he decides to stay in his father’s house for a while, perhaps as an escape from his own domestic life, perhaps because of his fascination with a young local.  

Shortly after his arrival, Victor encounters Liubin, an eighteen-year-old Roma who lives in a tightly knit community. Liubin has impregnated and has promised to marry a girl from the village. Liubin is something of a Roma cliché, a rebellious free spirit, a teenage male Carmen for our time. He seems to be constantly cheerful and uninhibited, but there’s a dark side. When a garage owner treats him violently, Liubin goes back at night and sets fire to the garage. Victor witnesses this late-night arson attack and helps Liubin make his getaway. Their friendship slowly develops into a full-blown romance that does not please either Victor’s father’s homophobic friends or Liubin’s Roma community. The consequences are far worse for Liubin. Victor goes back to Madrid, his mother, and his older lover.

The homophobia in LIUBIN is more benign than the racism, more menacing words than action. The corrupt white power structure goes to exteme measures to prevent any more Roma children being born into their community. White justice only serves the interests of the whites in the community. The Roma have their own violent system of justice. 

LIUBIN is a powerful, well-acted portrait of the social dynamics of Eastern European small-town life. That is also true of the Hungarian film LAND OF STORMS (2014; Directed by Adam Csaszi). LAND OF STORMS is based on a Hungarian murder case, but rather than offer a whodunit or courtroom drama, Csaszi has chosen to show us the events leading up to the murder. In the process, he creates a heart-rending tragedy.

LAND OF STORMS begins in Germany where Szabolcs has joined a minor soccer team. Soccer training seems to be a form of structured violence in which the coach constantly humiliates Szabolcs in front of his teammates. We discover that the coach is just another version of Szabolc’s father who has forced him into a life he does not want. After Szabolc’s has been red-carded in a crucial game, he gets into a fight with his best friend, Bernard, in the showers. Basically, he accuses Bernard of being sexually attracted to him. After this instance of the pot calling the kettle black, Szabolcs quits the team and goes to a small village in Hungary to live in a ramshackle farmhouse his grandfather has left him. There is no power or plumbing and the roof is a sieve. 

Late one night, Szabolcs wakes up to the sound of a young man stealing his motorbike. He knocks the thief off of the bike, but rather than hurt him or have him arrested, Szabolcs heals his wounds and offers him a job. The would-be thief, now fellow laborer, is Aron, a poor boy who takes care of his invalid mother. In his village, Aron is a good boy who goes to mass on Sunday and who properly courts one of the village girls. Like all the men in the village, he drinks a lot. Szabolcs and Aron become friends. 

One drunken night, Aaron masturbates the semi-conscious Aron, throwing the village boy into a state of confusion. The relationship elevates to a sexual relationship, but Aron does not know what to do with this new aspect of his life. Foolishly, he tells his mother that Scabolcs “felt him up” and that Aron didn’t stop him. As a result, Aron has to watch Szabolcs be brutally beaten by the young men of the village. Aron is also prevented from seeing the young woman he has been courting. Still, he goes back to Szabolcs. To the villagers, he has become a kind of prostitute, being paid for sex by this relatively well off outsider.

Meanwhile, Szabolcs has tried to re-establish a relationship with his father, who wants him to go back to soccer. Out of loneliness, he has also called his estranged friend Bernard, who shows up and confesses his love to Szabolcs. Bernard’s arrival on the scene does not play well with Aron, but the three men have drunken sex together. Bernard wants Szabolcs to go back to Germany with him, but Szabolcs feels responsible for Aron and won’t leave him alone in this hostile environment. The scenes with Aron and Bernard vying for Szabolcs are beautifully presented. Aron doesn’t speak or understand German, so Bernard can talk to Szabolcs without Aron understanding him. Nor does Bernard understand Hungarian. We see how Szabolcs is caught between two possibilities: life with Bernard, which would involve going back to Germany and soccer, or the life he has created here with Aron. They have taken up beekeeping, which obviously brings them joy. Unfortunately life on the farm with Aron endangers them both in a deeply homophobic community. Scabolcs realizes that Aron needs him, but does not understand the extent of Aron’s confusion and anguish. The young man is tortured by the other village men and becomes totally guilt-ridden when his invalid mother tries to commit suicide. He loves Szabolcs, but sees the object of his love as the cause of all his problems. 

The end of LAND OF STORMS is both surprising and inevitable. Csaszi has presented it, not as a sensational moment, but as the culmination of a series of emotionally devastating events. András Süto and Ádám Varga are brilliant as the star-crossed lovers. If we feel more for Varga’s Aron, it is because he is the character who goes through the most emotional turmoil. Since neither young man is very articulate, they have to create their characters though facial expressions and body language. 

I wonder if LAND OF STORMS could get made in Viktor Orban’s virulently anti-gay Hungary. The film is a powerful depiction of the power of homophobia, including internalized homophobia. It is also full of tender scenes of male sensuality.

Francis Lee’s 2017 British film GOD’S OWN COUNTRY is a film that starts out sad and ends up relatively joyful. We watch the emotional and spiritual awakening of a bitter, closed-off young man.

The first sight we have of Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor in his first film role), is of him vomiting after a typical night of heavy drinking. Johnny lives on a Yorkshire farm with his crippled father and grandmother. Neither offer him any affection. Basically, he works as the hired hand, doing all the farmwork with no encouragement or praise. At night Johnny gets drunk at the local pub. Occasionally he has sex in the pub toilet. He won’t let the men he is with show any affection. Nor does we want to be friends with them. 

Gheorge (Alex Secareanu),a Romanian casual laborer, is hired to help Johnny. At first Johnny is hostile toward him—he has had no role model for friendly discourse—but the two men are attracted to each other. After one bout of rather violent sex, Gheorge slowly teaches Johnny how to express affection physically if not verbally. He also teaches him to love the rough Yorkshire landscape. The men come to love each other but Johnny’s lack of emotional experience and his internalized homophobia sabotage their relationship. 

Johnny needs Gheorge, not only because of their emotional and sexual bond. Gheorge is also a much better farmer. Johnny will need Gheorge to keep the farm. He will also need him if he is to be at all happy. 

Josh O’Connor brilliantly captures Johnny’s inarticulate blossoming from bitterness to love, from hating his work to becoming devoted to it. Handsome Alex Secareanu is also a man of few words, but one whose emotions lie closer to the surface. The scenes of growing intimacy between the two men are beautifully depicted. The great Gemma Jones and Ian Hart play Johnny’s taciturn grandmother and father.

The happy ending of GOD’S OWN COUNTRY is a great relief after seeing LIUBEN and LAND OF STORMS. All three are excellent films.