159 - O Fantasma

We're still with MUBI and grateful for the opportunity to see O Fantasma, directed by João Pedro Rodrigues: a film José had heard of and been encouraged to see by various friends, but hadn't quite come his way until now. He thought the film was only a few years old and could now kick himself for having waited twenty years to see it. José thinks it a masterpiece, Mike doesn't; though the film being clearly aimed at a gay male audience might help account for it, and it speaks to José deeply. Following Sergio (Ricardo Meneses), a very handsome young garbageman in Lisbon, perpetually horny and on the hunt for sex, O Fantasma is feverish sex dream of a film, a reverie, that evokes the feeling of horniness, of being up for sex but having no one with whom to find release. What starts as a hunt eventually turns the hunter into the hunted. We discuss how the character of Sergio seems to have no filter and no fear. He lives in a homophobic culture fraught with danger but is free. The sexual situations seem to take on the form of a dare and, even in the most potentially dangerous encounters, Sergio's glance seems to say "I'm not afraid of you and it could get sexual if you want it to". We discuss how the film's story is structured differently to a conventional narrative: there is a conveyance of a certain kind of sexual dreamscape. The various episodes might not cohere in terms of plot but do come together in the film's conveyance of atmosphere and feeling. We note how for an earlier generation this would have been an X-rated film due not only to its subject matter but to its explicitness. We also remark upon the film's real queer gaze that is also a gay male gaze; something worth distinguishing. We compare the film to the New French Extremity films of the era but also note that where they possessed had a harsh kind of crudeness, O Fantasma is very stylised. José finds the film unusual and beautiful, with extraordinary images that are really potent and poetic. Sergio feels his desires in a culture in which he's allowed none of them. Yet this is a film that celebrates a full spectrum of desires, the freedom to desire and to act on one's desires. O Fantasma is a film that will confirm every homophobe's worst views of gay men - and that partly its strength. It's a film that is made in and asserts freedom. Sergio's gaze is radiant, subversive, and defiant. If you're a gay man interested in film, this is unmissable. Recorded on 30th July 2019.