'A Single Man'

The film 'A Single Man'(2009) directed by Tom Ford has left me more puzzled than disappointed. There has been many reviews of the film on the Internet, but none of these seem to be critical enough, at least not in the way I'd like to critique it. The way Zizek critiques cinema through psychoanalytical, sociological and cultural lens is what would suit my taste, but sadly Zizek doesn't seem to have written anything on it - and why should he? The fact that I feel more connections with the film doesn't mean he has to. He has more important films to review, and for the moment, let me attempt to say a few words of my own about this film.

I haven't read the original novel on which the film is based and am not going to. But while watching the film I could not help thinking how restrictive cinematic adaptations of literature usually are. As various critics point out, the film is a surreally beautiful one, not surprising that it came from Ford. But the way everyone in the film is so beautiful and everything in the film so elegant and expensive makes me uncomfortable. Imagine how ugly and unfit actors will spoil the whole film. Ugly ordinary people not only have no place in glamour or romance, they don't even have a place in sorrow and misery, which also need to be glamorous, romantic, and after all, SEXY, to be desirable. This reading, of course, is made from my privileged epistemological position of being an ordinary, unattractive, unsexy person. Depiction of the suppression of gay, and more generally the sadness and plight of human condition/experience, in Ford's way, through beautiful actors and expensive props, is in fact an insult on the people with which the film is supposed to create empathy and connection. Your sorrow is only worthy of attention when you are beautiful and sexually desirable. This underlying message makes this film one of the most regressionary that there can be, but this is not surprising that it has come from a world renowned fashion designer himself shrouded in glamour and riches. This also makes this film unforgivably boring and backward looking. Nothing new is there in the film. The original novel, however, will at least give readers some space of imagination, and more ways of interpretation, something Ford's film has obliterated.

Not unrelatedly, the film has also been puzzling at several points. I do not know how closely the script has followed the original story, but the message conveyed through the film is somewhat ambiguous. This is not to pass the normative judgment that all story has to be coherent and convey a clear message, but even incoherence should make a point, make sense. The feeling that I got after watching this film is that the message is neither naively unequivocal (like most Hollywood films are) though nearly so, nor incoherent or ambiguous in a sophisticated way.

Mainly two scenes in the film have contributed to my puzzlement. The first is when George got back home in the evening and was about to shoot himself. He tried various positions to rest his body in bed before he would shoot himself in the mouth but could not find a satisfactory position. In fact, the scene is a bit funny, where he repositions the pillow for many times and even tried a sleeping bag. It is not necessary to shoot oneself in the mouth to kill oneself - one can achieve just the same by putting the gun against the temples. The scene, in my reading, insinuates the act of fellatio. The way George constantly changes his position and could not find a comfortable one is the most convincing evidence. The second puzzling scene is when George passed in front of the little boy of the neighbouring family. The boy was holding a watergun and threatened to shoot George. George brooded a bit, before in his imagination he used the watergun to shoot the boy in his face. A stream of water shoots at the middle of the boy's face, and the boy spitted out those that got into his mouth. I have NO DOUBT that this is a thinly disguised (though perhaps more thickly for straight audience) reference to the fetish 'water game' or 'water sports' some gay men play by peeing on the sexual partner's face and/or body. The verisimilitude was so striking that for a moment I thought that was what it was in the film. For Tom Ford who is gay, he could not have produced the above two scenes innocently. I am very sure, but slightly more so about the second one than the first, that my readings above are the hidden references intended by Ford.

But what are these two references supposed to mean in the context of the whole film?? This I cannot fathom. Are they expressions of the suppressed sexual desires of George? But the film has made other more direct references to that. If the film is intended to a great extent to be a vivid description of a single gay man's emotional and sensual frustrations, as it is, what is water gaming a little boy supposed to add to it, given that this is a transgression that is unlikely to be permitted by even those most liberal/tolerant towards gay sex? Or are these two well camouflaged innuendos simply mischievous tricks that Ford created for his own secret pleasure? - like royal artisans in imperial China who secretly left their own personal marks (like signatures) on products they made for the imperial court, on which personal marks were strictly forbidden. If so, Ford has certainly succeeded, for I believe very few people would have made the interpretation that I have done of the two scenes, and I am not sure many of those who read this will buy them either.

Indeed, to me, these two scenes are the only sparks of brilliance in an otherwise unremarkable boring film.