"Mon copain Rachid" or "My Pal Rachid" is a French french-language live action short film from 1998, so already over 20 years old. The writer and director is Philippe Barassat and he has still made films until pretty recently. This is one of his earliest efforts. It runs for under 20 minutes and includes an introduction by anither actor sitting there next to a poster of "It's a Wonderful Life" for whatever reason. Well, let me tell you that this is not a wonderful film, rather tragic in fact. It is the story of two boys, one in puberty, the other still smaller and the younger has a bizarre obsession with the older one's genital. The older one makes use of that ands takes money from the younger boy, so he can see said genital. I really wonder where these boys' parents are and why they are not taking care of their sons. Anyway, it is not just the money aspect for the older one obviously as also he wants the younger boy to touch it. Okay, also for money, but still. So prostitution in the early stages is a serious issue here. Another at least as serious issue is the topic of sexual abuse and here I am talking about the scene with the two boys in bed together. Lets think about how this film would have happened if the younger boy was a girl. People would be up in arms about this plot and idea. The homosexual component apparently let them get away with it (not so much into equality huh?), but I find it highly worrying what is depicted as light entertainment here and boys just coming to terms with their sexuality. It is not right by any means. As for the final sequence, I don't know what Barassat intended there. It moves many years in the future and we see the young boy now grown up and married apparently setting his eyes on the grown-up older boy (according to the cast list). Well, I would have understood him to be a man looking similar to his childhood crush, but if it's really him it feels wrong too because grown-up Rachid looks younger than grown-up Eric. Anyway, are we supposed to think he misses Rachid and is worried that he has a normal life with a wife and cannot live what he really is and who he really wants? It is simply not working. The acting is tolerable, but the film feels just so wrong from every perspective, not really because of the contents, but because of how they want us to perceive these contents. I give this one a big thumbs-down. Not quality filmmaking and I hope Barassat managed to step things up since then in the many years afterward. kinda embarrassing also for the actor who played Rachid that this is his only career effort. Certainly says nothing positive at all. And shame on these creators of film compilations who included this movie more than once. Huge thumbs-down from me. Also if we ignore for a second how offensive this movie is, it is also downright nonsense story-wise, most of all on the more than one occasions when the odler boy calls the younger boy his genital. Like what in God's name. I will not be anymore explicit about that because otherwise imdb will block my review for obscenity reasons. This film is just not working from any perspective.
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