Once
again, a French director has portrayed the difficulties
of being a bisexual as well as trying to be the lover of
a bisexual. In La Confusion des genres (Confusion
of Genders),
director Ilan Duran Cohen's script ups the ante on the
1998 movie The School of Flesh (L'ecole de la chair) by
providing a portrait of three bisexual males trapped in
an existentialist rejection of self-stereotypes and two
women who suffer as a result. There are plenty of sex scenes,
proving that all three bisexual men are very passionate
lovers; indeed, in the opening scene the many partners
of fortysomething Alain Bauman (played by Pascal Greggory)
morph before us on the screen. Alain is a junior partner
in a law firm run by Laurence (played by Nathalie Richard).
Both are experiencing midlife crises, in part because they
have not pleased their heterosexual parents by settling
down into marriage. They sleep together a lot, but Alain
also enjoys the company of men, particularly Christophe
(played by Cyrille Thouvenin), perhaps the only gay man
in the story. Christophe is the late teen brother of Marlene
(played by Marie Saint-Dizier), whom Alain ditches early
in the film as he decides to suggest marriage with Laurence.
Wisely, Laurence demurs, even after she learns that she
is carrying his child; after all, Christophe at one point
starts to live happily with Alain. Meanwhile, one of Alain's
clients, Marc (played by Vincent Fernandez), is in jail
for murder. Marc immediately detects that Alain is gay
and tells him that he can always tell when men want him
to fuck them. But Marc is desperately in love with hair
stylist Babette (played Julie Gayet) and begs Alain to
bring her to visit at the prison. When Alain does so after
much urging, Marc starts to pull off her clothes, so she
runs off, and he is forbidden to see her again. Marc's
cellmate Etienne (played by Alain Bashung), who inferentially
has been his passive sex partner in prison, receives an
instruction from Marc just before his release, having served
his time. The order, an obvious clue to their relationship,
is to contact Babette in order to tell her how much he
loves her. After Etienne contacts her, she is frightened
and moves in with Alain (and Christophe) for protection,
perhaps realizing that the confused lawyer is amorously
attracted to her. Upset, Christophe is ready to leave,
considering three to be a crowd in a small apartment, but
Alain persuades him to stay. On learning that Babette is
no longer interested in him, Marc next insists that Etienne
must kill Babette, but Etienne instead falls in love with
her. After much hesitation, including a bizarre wedding
ceremony, Alain and pregnant Laurence get married, and
later she gives birth. Christophe, however, is more delighted
with the baby than either the husband or wife. In the final
scene, a male nurse comes into the room and removes the
baby without explanation; when Alain goes out of the room,
presumably to find out why, the nurse says that he is going
to give the baby a bath. But of course Alain's real reason
for talking to the nurse, filmviewers will conclude, is
to find out his name and telephone number to start up another
affair. The film, with the tagline "Did you ever have
to make up your mind?," then ends with haunting lyrics
of a delightful song. Although Confusion of Genders is
supposed to be a comedy, the humor sails past American
audiences because the actors do not grimace or otherwise
provide a clue that filmviewers are to laugh. Serious expressions
on their faces, combined with subtitles that barely keep
up with the dialog, turn the plot into a boy-chases-boy-chases-girl
story for Americans who live in a less subtle culture,
one that knows almost nothing about Albert Camus's existentialist
philosophy, the contradictions of which are repeatedly
exposed in the film. In France, however, the film could
well serve as the pilot for an amusing sitcom, with or
without a laugh track. MH
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