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I enjoyed "You Are Not Alone" very much, but am curious as to the director's true intent. As most reviewers have noted, the most striking theme in the movie is the romantic relationship between Bo and Kim, and this will largely determine a viewer's reaction to the movie. Many of those who admire it (such as myself!) see in this a wish-fulfillment of frustrated adolescent erotic longings from their own youth. Others (probably even many others) see the portrayal of this relationship as disgusting -- difficult as it is for me to understand this, given the chastity of what is shown in the movie. However, on the face of it, this is not the real theme of the movie. Rather, this is the rebellion of Youth against Authority, which was a very prominent subject in the 1970's, when the movie was made. It is quite possible to interpret the whole movie as being about this topic, with the gay relationship only being one of its many manifestations. Admittedly, the movie's abrupt ending, immediately after a scene where the assembled faculty and public are shown a filming of a prolonged erotic embrace between the young lovers, seems to miss a big chance to say more about this youth/adult conflict, and to emphasize the gay theme. However, I can't really think of a way in which the scene that would have resulted from this would have had any constructive upshot, and it seems to me a clever device of the film-makers to leave this to the viewer's imagination.
In an attempt to find out more about the true intent of the writers, I trolled the internet and found that this movie is the final one of a trilogy by Lasse Nielsen about youth. The previous two have no gay element at all (at least, according to the reviews, I haven't seen them). This makes me think that the conflict rather than the gay theme was indeed uppermost in the writer's mind -- at least, nominally. For me (and many others), the romance remains its real content. Lasse Nielsen seems to have made no other movie since this one (although, rather mysteriously, a search on his name in amazon.com yields a second hit, another movie from featuring nude boys, called Genesis Children, from 1991, but Nielsen is not actually listed in any credits for this one!).
I have to say that, apart from the romance, the movie is not that all that well crafted, which is why I couldn't give it a 10. (After several more viewings, I changed the rating to 10 after all.) The various themes are not well developed and transitions between scenes tend to be abrupt and disjointed. In particular, I would have liked to see more about how the Bo/Kim relationship really developed -- we just get a few highlights, apparently spread out over a considerable stretch of time (but unclear just how long: weeks? months?) On the other hand, the film has a large number of very interesting characters, albeit often sketchily depicted; and the acting is uniformly excellent, I am amazed at how well the generally very youthful actors perform.
Incidentally, I found the following review in the NYTimes from 1981, when the movie was shown at a film festival, which is not included in the External Reviews on IMDb.com: query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html ?res=9A03E0DF153BF931A35752C0A967948260 (Spaces inserted in order to comply with IMDb.com rules on long words.) It's quite amusing, but not very kind!
Finally, I have a query for anyone with more insight into the movie: why does Bo remove Kim's arm from his shoulder in the scene of the group's discussion of events after the bathing scene where a boy was injured? It doesn't fit in the uniformly blissful unfolding of their relationship, but it doesn't seem to mean very much either. It's a very minor point, I'm just curious. (Update: it's been pointed out to me that this is consistent with Bo's feeling some shame about his sexual orientation, cf. the opening scene where he pulls back from stroking his friend's back, the scene where he moves away from Kim when Aske enters the room, and the scene at the picnic where he seems about to kiss Kim but instead breathes on his stomach.)
score 10/10
lucaswillem 1 June 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1885000/ |
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23-3-2021 06:06:05