This is an honest movie about hard subjects. It is not meant to please the politically correct. It is also not a gay movie. It is much deeper than a portrayal of one sexual lifestyle.
I see it, on one level, as an allegory about migration and economic power. Whether or not it was intended to be this seems irrelevant to me. But, I also appreciated its honest portrayal of hustling as it relates to age and isolation in gay male culture.
The choice to make Daniel, the middle aged gay client of Marek/Rouslan, a white-collar depressive who is not a slick English-speaker was brilliantly spot on. The interchange of language when the two main characters begin to forge a meaningful relationship from prostitution is paralleled artfully with the interchange of sexual positions between them. Sex, growing to meaningful verbal communication, growing to love, growing to individuation, and salvation for both.
Very affective cinematography which is intensely personal or roughly realistic. Daniil Vorobyov, as the Boss, plays a truly frightening villain, whose beauty as an instrument of his sadism rang so true for me. The plot and the Boss character's personality take interesting turns which balance the subdued portrayals of Daniel and Marek/Rouslan.
As an older gay man who came out at 17 on a hustler strip of an American city in the 1960s because I could not get into bars, I was impressed by how some things really haven't changed despite the progress in developed nations for middle class and wealthy gay men. The Eastern Boys were familiar to me, as was Daniel, the john. The oldest profession remains either stepping stone or downfall for the runaways and refugees. At least, this one film handled this reality with artful sensitivity and realism.
I see it, on one level, as an allegory about migration and economic power. Whether or not it was intended to be this seems irrelevant to me. But, I also appreciated its honest portrayal of hustling as it relates to age and isolation in gay male culture.
The choice to make Daniel, the middle aged gay client of Marek/Rouslan, a white-collar depressive who is not a slick English-speaker was brilliantly spot on. The interchange of language when the two main characters begin to forge a meaningful relationship from prostitution is paralleled artfully with the interchange of sexual positions between them. Sex, growing to meaningful verbal communication, growing to love, growing to individuation, and salvation for both.
Very affective cinematography which is intensely personal or roughly realistic. Daniil Vorobyov, as the Boss, plays a truly frightening villain, whose beauty as an instrument of his sadism rang so true for me. The plot and the Boss character's personality take interesting turns which balance the subdued portrayals of Daniel and Marek/Rouslan.
As an older gay man who came out at 17 on a hustler strip of an American city in the 1960s because I could not get into bars, I was impressed by how some things really haven't changed despite the progress in developed nations for middle class and wealthy gay men. The Eastern Boys were familiar to me, as was Daniel, the john. The oldest profession remains either stepping stone or downfall for the runaways and refugees. At least, this one film handled this reality with artful sensitivity and realism.