Pink Narcissus

Wisdom says that a girl will start to be liked by others when she starts to like herself. This probably applies not only to everyone else but especially to social minorities. In the US, Malcolm X had to come earlier and proclaim to African Americans that they don't have to internalize the inferiority imposed on them by centuries of white civilization. It can be said that James Bidgood came after him and held up a mirror to a young homosexual - not critically, but as a form of liberation. Gays (probably not only historically) can and must go through narcissism to liberate their desires, and moreover, to first liberate their erotic fantasies. This exact moment is captured in the film - it is one big "fantasy," the phantasm of the hero's desire, taking on the most classical form of daydreaming and nightdreaming, a form of kitschy fairytale. (If you don't like David LaChapelle, you won't like the aesthetics of this film either.) It is indicative (at least for me) that homosexual aesthetics (if it can be called that without being accused of homophobia) tended towards this fairytale-like, dreamy quality – they were playing at being policemen, lumberjacks, slaves, sailors, see the paintings of Touko Laaksonen. Otherwise, the film is surprisingly formally playful. Noé's LOVE is not the first film to show ejaculation in detail directly on camera, directly into the audience's face. It would also be interesting to examine the film from a purely psychoanalytic perspective, especially those moments when untainted pure desire turns into its dirty opposite (a row of mirrors in a row of shells of public toilets, wiped by the mouth of the hero who a moment ago kissed himself on the shiny surface of the mirror). (25.10.2015)