This is a candy colored, stunningly photographed wordless romance between a young man living in Belgium and a Dutch sailor or 'matroos.' The man in Belgium is played by Joram Schurmans, who is called Joram Roodhooft. The sailor is played by Tom de With, who uses his own name for the role.
Some have compared the look of the film to the work of the French photographers Pierre et Gilles, and there is a lot of that hot house atmosphere and those saturated colors here, but the look of the film, I would say, is more like the initial, nonsexual scenes in a Tom of Finland comic book--stalwart, stunningly handsome young naïfs in a clean-lined 1950s world.
A lot of the scenes are clearly filmed against a green screen or a back projection. And other scenes are clearly in beautiful sets. It is beautiful and theatrical, like a more delicate version of 'Querelle.' The boys kiss on the beach, two stunningly handsome young men. As the sailor travels to exotic climes, such as Ecuador, they send to one another an erotically suggestive tropical flower, and then, over and over, the same chocolate bar.
In the end, when they feel they must go their separate ways, drifting apart and fearful of the world in which they live, the scenes take place very much in the real world, at a dock and its attendant sheds. Yet the look of the film--the colors and the grain of the film stock, look like authentic 1950s documentary footage--real yet artificial, still beautiful.
Some have compared the look of the film to the work of the French photographers Pierre et Gilles, and there is a lot of that hot house atmosphere and those saturated colors here, but the look of the film, I would say, is more like the initial, nonsexual scenes in a Tom of Finland comic book--stalwart, stunningly handsome young naïfs in a clean-lined 1950s world.
A lot of the scenes are clearly filmed against a green screen or a back projection. And other scenes are clearly in beautiful sets. It is beautiful and theatrical, like a more delicate version of 'Querelle.' The boys kiss on the beach, two stunningly handsome young men. As the sailor travels to exotic climes, such as Ecuador, they send to one another an erotically suggestive tropical flower, and then, over and over, the same chocolate bar.
In the end, when they feel they must go their separate ways, drifting apart and fearful of the world in which they live, the scenes take place very much in the real world, at a dock and its attendant sheds. Yet the look of the film--the colors and the grain of the film stock, look like authentic 1950s documentary footage--real yet artificial, still beautiful.