Customer Reviews

Wild Side

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This is a film about Stephanie (Stephanie Michelini) who was born as Pierre, she survives as a prostitute on the streets of Paris and has some very enchanting co workers who don't seem to feel the cold very much judging by their choice of wardrobe, or rather lack of one. There is an awful lot of oral action actually, you start to wonder do men think about anything else, and the answer comes back pretty much as a 'probably not'. Well enough said. As if she is not getting enough man meat action at work, she also has two lovers, which is a tad greedy by anyone's imagination.

Then she gets a call from the hospital where her mother is dying, they are sending her home to the rural farm house where Pierre painfully grew up. So she and Mikhail head off to rural Nowheresville to care for her. Mikhail (Edouard Nikitine) is a Russian immigrant who misses his homeland but loves his two partners. He comes across as being very warm and caring, he is learning French but speaks a lot of English and of course his native tongue. They are then joined by Djamel (Yasmine Belmadi) who is a 'hustler' 'yay more sex! He is also Egyptian and has his own baggage too, emotional that is.

They start to care for Stephanie's mum and through flash back we get the background story and how the three came to meet. This is a brilliantly acted, directed and shot piece of cinema, I found it totally captivating and full of real emotion and some very engaging performances. The interplay between mother and son/daughter was one of the most interesting and intelligent parts of the story.

Directed and co-written by Sebastien Lifschitz (Presque Rien /Come Undone) this 94 minute offering is for anyone who is into world cinema and especially those of a gay theme. Whilst there is a fair bit of rumpy pumpy in this it is actually done very sensitively and with the three lovers it is genuinely touching without being crass or vulgar. So for some real alternative TV, then you can not go wrong with this.

What happens when you get three young gay men with very different personalities and needs living together in Paris? What happens is complex because they have sex as a trio, sex as couples within the trio, and sex as prostitutes with outsiders in order to make a living. Friendship keeps the trio together. But the needs of their very different personalities also attract them to each other as couples. And those needs are not all sexual, because all three men are in touch with family members.

Drawn into the story from the beginning by the stunning photography and music, which enhance the sense of reality, the viewer becomes part of the story in attempting to connect the gaps left by the sparse dialogue. "Wild Side" is a unique film in that it offers the rare experience of viewing a group portrait in motion, so different from viewing a portrait fixed in paint on canvas. The frequent flashbacks, while they add a sense of depth and mystery, are at times a bit difficult to follow and probably would have been better done in black and white or in sepia, to set them off from the main story. This is why I rate the film at 4 rather than 5 stars. Don't miss it, particularly the deleted scene with two of the men in a tub. This scene captures a dimension of gay affection not often brought to the screen; it is a marvelous complement to the undeleted scene of two men in a tub. Sebastien Lifschitz is a very promising director in the ranks of world cinema.