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Le Beau Mec
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Altered Innocence Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (1st March 2025). |
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The Film
 Before he was hustler, gay magazine model, and infrequent porn star Karl Forest, he was Jean-Paul Doux; or, at least, he was Jean-Paul Doux when he first posed and had a role as an idealized potential stand-in for filmmaker Philippe Vallois in his biographical film-within-a-film about equally enigmatic lover Johan. Le beau mec. The introductory image of Forest doing a striptease wearing an SS helmet and gyrating on a canon to sinister electronic music touches upon different points in his life that contributed to his image and his fantasies, starting on one end with his recollections of playing soldiers in the countryside where the forests are full of leftover stashes of weapons and supplies left behind by the Resistance – giving way to a fantasy of two young soldiers in a forest clearing making love under rays of sunlight streaming through the trees (while being spied upon by a Nazi) – and his revelation that he had not heard of biker culture and the Hell's Angels until he went to Paris (illustrated by a sequence of him on the receiving end of oral sex while brandishing a switchblade and a silent vignette of him bristling under the authoritative glare of a police officer before being handcuffed and bent over a table – the cutting suggests a body double for him and himself body doubling the cop before he turns the table by bending the cop over while dressed as a literal gangster (as an illustration of his anecdote about forming gangs in the various male-dominated situations in which he found himself from school to the military to work after the army). Although he tells the viewer that he has always been a bruiser, his recollections of the army reveal the need to hide any sort of sentiment lest he be exposed as the odd man out only to then recognize fellow soldiers in the pornographic photographs shown to him by a client. The "what if" overtly suggests regret of wasted opportunities to hook up but also implies the possibility that he could have been less guarded if not more open. Over semi-staged scenes of his daily life – sleeping, bathing, and working out during which his humble-brag claims that he is not all that muscular or a bodybuilder perhaps only make "sense" as either compliment-seeking or in comparison to the exaggerated idealizations of the male form on the covers of various Tom of Finland-esque comics on view during a visit by the camera to a sex shop – he discusses his sex work, revealing that he did not know what else to do upon arriving in Paris but thought of it as a way to meet people and find his place more so than a means of living out his fantasies. While he professes to have no hangups and is open in the moment to anything, Forest does indeed express reticence to get caught up in fantasies lest they disappoint. His approach to sex work is businesslike and dispassionate – as he muses on the soundtrack that in ten years when his body no longer "works" he will be on "another trip" – his face a study in distraction as he is serviced by a client so enthusiastic that his toupee slip askew; a sequence which is presumably staged since the client is Carmelo Petix, an actor in French and Italian porn of the era whose smooth dome has been on view elsewhere including a gay scene in Furies sexuelles (available from Vinegar Syndrome offshoot label Mélusine). Further underlining his sense of loneliness is his description of arriving in Paris and classifying people as ones he does or does not want to fuck, describing his buddies as those with which he has a transactional relationship but not to be counted upon while discovering gradually that he liked some of the people to whom he was not attracted. In another vignette, Forest discusses the types of men to whom he is attracted, distinguishing "well-formed" from "virile" and showing more enthusiasm and energy in a staged encounter with a boy whose glance he returns on the street. Forest recalls getting into the cabaret scene through a client leading to another choreographed number (more on that below) and what might either be a fantasy or another choreographed piece in which a single flashlight beam illuminates another sexual encounter that appears to be between Forest and one person only for a third body to be involved making us question just where Forest was in that equation.  A cinematic ode to the enigmatic Forest (or at least his image) by filmmaker Wallace Potts – who was better known as the archivist for his lover ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev (Ken Russell's Valentino) but had the gay animation Demigods and the unseen porn film More, More, More at the start of his filmography and the obscure multi-director eighties horror anthology Tales of the Unliving and the Undead and the widely-available video store dust-gatherer Psycho Cop on the other in addition to some more minor film functions like providing "additional dialogue" to the English-language, French eighties science fiction film Terminus – Le Beau Mec blurs the line where Forest's fantasies end and Potts' own begin. The French opening credits attribute the "scénario" to Forest himself, but the notion of authorship is unclear. French credits sometimes distinguish between the roles of scénario, adaptation, and dialogues and other times have the simple credit of "écrit par." The "script" is on one level a recorded interview with Forest – mostly heard as voice-over and seen later as Forest lounges in front of the camera in various states of dress, covered crotch prominently foregrounded – which may have unfolded linearly or shuffled around to fit the structure of the imagery. Forest's narration is overdubbed by an American voice actor which may or may not have been the case with the French theatrical release unless, of course, the English-language translation is intentionally another level of interpretation to better fuse Forest's experiences and Potts' imagery. The fantasies themselves are Potts' visualizations inspired by the talk but presumably Forest also had some input along with cinematographer François About who lensed several straight and gay French porn films – including La femme-objet and Equation to an Unknown, another artistic gay film with a melancholy air directed by artist Francis Savel – as well as television documentaries and more mainstream work, while the more casual scenes depicting Forest's downtime have a similarly painterly quality in the use of available light and shadows sculpting Forest sleeping like a recumbent statue or lounging in the kitchen with his feet up on the window sill awkwardly waiting for a fuck buddy to take their leave. The ending in which he disappears into the Parisian crowds and traffic seems especially poignant as Forest would not live another ten years to find another "trip" while Potts would dedicate much of his later days to archiving his documentation of Nureyev's performances after the dancer's early death. The film was edited by another Gilbert Kikoïne, son of French porn editor/director Gérard Kikoïne who went mainstream in the eighties via globe-hopping producer Harry Alan Towers. 
Video
Hard to see outside of poor quality digitizations of a VHS source after its scattered theatrical play, Le Beau Mec was recently restored in 4K from the original 16mm camera negatives found in the garage of the late Potts' brother. Besides the credits opticals, the opening sequence appears to be shot through some sort of on-camera or post-production filter or even a lighting pattern through a gobo. After the opening, the image is generally clean and crisp with the scenes shot under more controlled conditions boasting good detail while the forest sequence's shafts of sunlight and long lenses do not lend themselves to the best delineation of highlights or shadows. If there was any archival damage it has been cleaned without any evident adverse effects to the image although what remains may be due to the original development and processing. 
Audio
The sole audio option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track with the aforementioned overdubbing as it has always been. The track is clean, calling attention to the varied electronic score while English SDH subtitles transcribe the overdubbed version of the narration. Spanish subtitles are also available. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by a new audio commentary by film historian Elizabeth Purchell and filmmaker Adam Baran, the latter of which programmed the film for his "Narrow Rooms" screening series devoted to edgy and dark gay films in contrast to those more concerned with positive gay representation. They both provide some background on the restoration as well as Potts who may have had a sexual relationship with Forest but definitely did with future award-winning cinematographer Néstor Almendros (Days of Heaven) who was in the closet at the time and did not come out until later in the eighties and reportedly shot the forest sequence in which Paris' Bois de Boulogne (a popular cruising ground) stood in for the woods of Forest's childhood (they also reiterate the claim that Nureyev himself choreographed Forest's cabaret acts seen in the film rather than the credited Jacques Fabre. The commentaries also discuss the way the film plays with gay porn tropes still being established as well as the "beautiful but damaged" trope of films about sex workers that extends beyond the genre back to the likes of The Blue Angel as well as offering up interpretation of the ways in which Forest through editing and framing appears to play more than one role in each of the sex scenes as if he is having sex with himself. They also reveal that Wakefield Poole (Boys in the Sand), himself a former dancer who knew Potts and Nureyev, was instrumental in the film's U.S. distribution and made a speech at the premiere decrying the state of American gay adult film. The commentary track also includes some background on Potts' and Poole's more prolific American genre contemporaries. In the interview François About Talks About "Le beau mec" with historian Hervé Joseph Lebrun (17:22), the cinematographer reveals that he met Forest through Philippe Vallois and Potts through Almendros who had come to France after spending time in jail in Cuba for being gay and refused to work in porn due to homophobic French laws. About got Almendros set up in French television leading to his more art house and mainstream work. About gives his impressions of Potts and Forest who suggested that the film would not be "just porn" and that he would have resources that ultimately did not materialize. He also describes tension with Forest who thought he was directing and did not always like About's setups which were where the light was – although he believes Forest ultimately got what he wanted in terms of the depiction of his real life – and also that Potts used material including test shots that like the aforementioned pan over the items in the sex shop. The disc also includes a print materials & original photos gallery (5:19), a newly-created trailer (1:24) for the restoration, and trailers for other Altered Innocence releases. 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover and a 12-page booklet by film critic Caden Mark Gardner who provides an essay on Forest, Potts, and the production of the film with quotes from Potts about its conception.
Overall
A cinematic ode to the inner life of an enigmatic sex worker by the lover of Rudolph Nureyev, Le beau mec blurs the line between where the subject's reality ends and the filmmaker's fantasies begin.
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