In the back room of a gay club in Barcelona, the camera stalks the men (privy to their inner thoughts in voice overs), who stalk each other on a typically busy Saturday night.
Back Room (2000)
Finding love can be difficult, but surely a backroom on a Saturday night is the last place you should go looking for it. Certainly the men in this Spanish short seem to be searching for just one thing and it clearly isn’t a boyfriend – or is it?
For in this realistic depiction of backroom life, we get to hear the inner thoughts of those whose need for sex see them seek out that area of a club or bar, that is but an indoor cruising ground. And yet and inspite of the subject under discussion, male nudity is seldom on view in a piece that is more akin to a cinematic representation of lust and if anything, loneliness. Yes it’s all very seedy, but how could it be otherwise, as we view the scene through the eyes of Iván, a backroom virgin who “shouldn’t have come,” turns to go, but instead finds himself being serviced bottom end up as this short rapidly heads to its sexual climax.
Thankfully along the way Morales sets the atmosphere rather nicely, mixing a throbbing club sound with images of men of all ages and types seen cruising a maze of dark corridors that whilst new to some, are more than familiar territory to those ever on the lookout for fresh meat. Only in between such carnal encounters, Morales injects a series of cutting comments, questioning if the mens’ boyfriends or for that matter their girlfriends, know where they are? Yet the most poignant words come from an older man who looked upon in disgust by the local stud, offers the biting remark that “when you’re my age and they look at you with the same eyes that you look at me – then you’ll see.”
For the star of the show is the narrative itself, as voiceover after voiceover aptly conveys the reality of the situation and how for some men, kissing on the lips is a no-go area, after all “who does he think I am – his boyfriend?” Yet that is the bottom line here, given not everyone present is looking for sex. Only do those men have the courage to voice their need for love and affection in such a soulless environment? A telling work indeed.
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