Pride and the Prisoners of Love 

A disembodied arm swings a trussed bouquet of flowers back and forth from a jailhouse window as a different arm repeatedly reaches out from the adjacent window in a futile attempt to catch hold of the flowers. A prison guard looks through a peephole and is mesmerized by the swaying motion of an inmate holding a bouquet and fondling himself. Two men in a forest stop to make love in a clearing framed by overgrown blossoms when the idyll is interrupted by a harsh reality. Jean Genet's 1950 homoerotic art classic is stuffed full of symbolism, most potent of which is the floral motif running throughout the 26-minute Un chant d'amour. Flowers were a defining element of Genet's work as a playwright, poet and novelist, and here they underscore Genet's theme of men striving for intimacy while being condemned to eternal longing.

Genet's first (and only) film, Un chant d'amour (Song of Love) was originally conceived as arty gay porn for prosperous collectors. I briefly covered Genet's life and career in a previous post (Querelle, June 20, 2024) so I'll just repeat that Genet, in addition to being a petty thief, vagrant and male prostitute, was one of the 20th Century's most influential literary figures. Although he had already established himself as an author of considerable skill (not necessarily a lucrative endeavor), Genet found himself arrested for theft and back in prison by the late 1940's. Once released, the castigated writer decided to try his hand at filmmaking. With financial backing from a well-to-do friend, Genet cast his film with non-actors from the Montmartre demimonde with whom he associated. Using a 16mm camera (later switched to 35mm), he began filming in 1950, utilizing his benefactor's nightclub (the legendary La Rose Rouge) for the hastily constructed prison set.  

Considered by many critics and cinephiles to be a masterpiece, Un chant d'amour revolves around the erotic fantasies of three principal characters--a very handsome North African prisoner; his objet du desir, a young murderer occupying the cell next to him; and a brutal prison guard and voyeur who is, himself, seething with unfulfilled passion. Two other cells are occupied by minor characters who, aware of the guard's spying eyes, tease him with defiant, autoerotic dance movements. 

All this only whets the guard's appetite for the two prisoners who only have "eyes" for each other. Though, as they are separated by a thick wall, these men never actually see one another. They communicate through knocks and sexually charged moments, as when the older man slips a straw through a pinhole and blows cigarette smoke into his beloved's hungry mouth. The wall acts as both a barrier against, and a surrogate for, physical intimacy, as demonstrated by the Algerian man pressing his erection against the wall. 

The guard's imaginings have a more S&Mish tint that find him naked and grappling with a handsome stranger who may--or may not--represent one of the two men with whom he has developed a dangerous fascination. Realizing that he can never penetrate the emotional barricade surrounding the pair, he enters the Algerian's cell and penetrates his mouth with the barrel of a gun after giving him a fierce lashing with a belt. Disgusted, the guard leaves as the other man smiles. The film then cuts to an outside shot of the window and the arm swinging the bouquet towards the waiting hand that finally catches it, indicating that the principal character's connection will not be thwarted by violence and the lack of physicality.   

In Un chant d'amour, Genet abandons the voice of his written work--in fact, the film is utterly silent--relying instead on pure imagery. The stark cinematography by Jacques Natteau focuses on faces and bodies, distracted, pained, tantalizingly aroused, highlighting the loneliness and frustrations consuming the central characters. Long banned on obscenity grounds, Un chant d'amour is a historic milestone in gay cinema and a major work of erotic art. At the time of its release, most of Genet's collaborators remained unnamed in order to protect them from the anticipated controversy (and possible criminal charges). We do know that Genet's own boyfriend played the younger man while the hot Algerian convict was, in reality, a Franco-Tunisian pimp. Un chant d'amour currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.