Looking at Complicated Desires: Gay Male Youth and Cinematic Representations of Age-Different Relationships

Abstract

In 2011 Marco Berger, as director and writer, presented the film Absent, offering a provocative narrative scenario relating gay male age-different relationships. A key sequence offers an intense engagement:

At the end of a complicated afternoon, and maintaining that he has nowhere else to go, an adolescent boy accompanies his swimming instructor to the man’s apartment. As they enter the front door, a female neighbour approaches, asks a question of the man, and glimpses at his youthful guest. Once inside, while the boy eats a sandwich, the man telephones his girlfriend to explain what is occurring and then lies back on his bed, evidently contemplating the complex situation. Seconds later, the boy knocks on the man’s bedroom door and asks to take a shower: ‘to wash off the chlorine’, he emphasizes. Silently acknowledging that their erotically charged circumstances are on the verge of intensifying further, the man hesitates visibly before responding, but he ultimately relents when the boy makes him feel foolish for doing so.