Un Chant D'Amour
Written & Directed by Jean Genet
Two arms, hanging out of separate windows. One arm is swinging, holding a bouquet of flowers, the other is trying to catch it.
Two prisoners. One older, hairy, lustful, the other is younger, handsome, narcissistic. The young one does a nervous dance of sexual frustration; the older prisoner calls to him from the other side of the wall that separates their cells. He inserts a straw through a hole in the wall and blows cigarette smoke through to the young inmate, who at first ignores him, then later pulls a straw from his mattress to receive the smoke.
A warder walks the halls, peeking into the cells, sees everywhere men masturbating openly, furiously. A black prisoner performs a frantic erotic dance with his cock swinging wildly, and the warder fantasizes about having sex with the prisoners, who taunt him. He enters the older, hairy prisoner's cell and thrashes him sadistically with his belt. The older prisoner fantasizes about a playful rendezvous with the younger prisoner, outside the prison, in a wooded area. The warder puts his gun in the older prisoner's mouth.
Outside the warder walks away, and the second arm finally catches the flowers and pulls them inside.
This is essentially the plot of Jean Genet's Un Chant D'Amour, a 25 minute black and white erotic film with no spoken dialog. The beatnik-era soundtrack of primitive drumming pounds away, resonating perfectly with the raw, pent-up sexual energy that pervades the film. The prisoners cannot express their lusts while they remain separated from each other by thick cell walls; the warder cannot allow himself to give into his forbidden desires for fear that he might become as base and depraved as the prisoners on his watch. The ignoble squalor of Un Chant D'Amour is filmed richly, and feels like a dark, surreal dream.
Jean Genet's sole film, Un Chant D'Amour, is rarely seen and difficult to find, but is regarded as a minor masterpiece of erotic cinema. The bulk of the scenes were filmed in 'La Rose Rouge', normally a Parisian nightclub and brasserie frequented by the Existentialists, and its uncredited cast was cobbled together from a motley crew of locals, friends and professional performers--including a North African barber & pimp, and a cabaret dancer. The brief outdoor scenes were actually shot on Jean Cocteau's property. Un Chant D'Amour was filmed in secret over a few months, and was screened primarily in private--both because it would have been deemed pornographic and obscene when it was completed in 1950. Copies of the film were sold and distributed to wealthy homosexual intellectuals of the period.
In 1964, Jonas Mekas, screened it publicly in New York, but was beaten, arrested and threatened by the New York City's finest. Later that year, Saul Landau screened it in several locations before being the Berkeley police caught wind of it and warned him not to show it again. Landau and the ACLU sued, even putting an appeal before the US Supreme Court, but ultimately this artfully filmed and lyrical prison fantasy was found by judges (and even a jury) to be indecent pornography without merit.
Un Chant D'Amour is truly an occult film, and is an emotionally charged and involving piece of homoerotica that retains its strange magic even after repeated viewings.
- ©Jack Malebranche
From: Lust Magazine
Additional reading: Un Chant D'Amour by Mark Adnum
