2023-09-01 22:42:38
That in the US they have a problem with sex in the cinema has been known for a long time. Any nude scene condemns that film to the dreaded R rating, which means that minors must be accompanied by an adult to view it. Only in this way can it be understood that this rating was the one awarded to Oppenheimer, while here in Spain it was awarded ‘Not recommended for children under 12 years of age’. There is, however, a rating more feared by directors, and that is NC-17. In this it is directly prohibited for anyone under 17 years of age to go see it.
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Further
That is the dubious honor that they have given there to Passages, Ira Sachs’ new film in which the director offers a brilliant look at toxic relationships through a love triangle between a couple of two men and the lover of one of them. A threesome full of sex that has scandalized the US. In Spain it has the same rating as Oppenheimer, Not recommended for children under 12 years of age. sex is important in Passages, and it is in a narrative way. Their meetings show how the power relations between them vary. Sachs is able to extract eroticism without giving up his brilliant dissection of how violent any romantic relationship can be.
It is also the portrait of an emotional vampire. One of those black holes that sucks energy from those next to him, but one with charisma and a sex appeal so big that everyone would fall into their nets. This is the character played by Franz Rogowski, one of the best European actors of the moment, who plays a manipulative film director who begs for affection. A magnet you can’t take your eyes off. His ability to seduce everyone with such a despicable character is incredible. A task that helps the intelligent script of Sachs.
The filmmaker does not understand the decision of the rating by age set in the US and gives an example of that “gap of five years” with respect to the Spanish one. “I am concerned that this type of rating sends a signal to other filmmakers not to allow footage that is honest to experience. queer. I think what that rating really says is, ‘watch out, Big Brother is watching you,’” he explains.
About his sex scenes, of a dramatic intensity and a rarely seen realism, he takes credit for it. “I made them happen, but I wasn’t responsible for it,” he says, stressing that the important thing is that “the actors have a voice” in these scenes. That is why he is not comfortable with the figure of the intimacy coordinator, since he believes that it is also important that the performers have the ability to improvise in those scenes, and a third person complicates that possibility.
Ira Sachs believes that what he brings as a director is “the look of a gay man”, and that this “is significant in the film”. “What I try to do is understand the limits of the actors and then proceed from there. So there is a trust between them and me. My strategy is for the camera to be an observer, but not a participant. And I think that’s significant in the sense that you feel like you’re looking at these characters, but it also excludes you in a way,” he underlines.
the power of man
Passages it was born, like many movies we see now, during the pandemic. Ira Sachs wanted to make a film that reflected his “desire for privacy”. There arose a story that had to meet another requirement, “to be full of desire.” It was also during the pandemic when many couples, forced to live together for 24 hours, saw the power dynamics that operate in any human relationship become more clearly outlined. “As a filmmaker I think that’s where the drama lies, in the changing dynamic between two people in relation to power,” he clarifies.
You can’t describe a character without taking their class into account. One’s relationship with the economy, work and material things define who you are in the world
Ira Sachs—Film director
Social class is affected in these dynamics, although the cinema does not usually pay attention to it. In Passages is clear. Their condescension towards her; of a humbler class, her way of treating her. For Sachs there is no doubt: “You can’t describe a character without taking into account her class.” “One’s relationship with the economy, work and material things define who you are in the world. And I think it’s significant that the woman in the film is of a different class than the two men. In a way, she is vulnerable to violence because of that difference. When she walks into the house of the two men at the end of the movie you want her to get out of there because somehow she’s in real danger. There is no protection for her there, and I think it is, to a large extent, a question of class and gender, ”she underlines.
That is where another of the issues of the film comes in, the toxic masculinity that also appears in this love triangle. She confesses that he identifies more as an “artist, as a gay person or as a Jew” than as a “man”, and yet the power that being one gives him is there. “Actually it is my masculinity that ranks first in the world. As if being a man was the way to walk into a room. I think this film is an exploration of my own position as a man in the world and thinking about what do I do with that power, what do I do with that position.” It’s no wonder Passages It is also born from the experience lived during the Trump era, whose masculinity stained everything: “I think that living under Trump made me think about what it means to be under the shadow of a man with power.”
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