What actually happens when nobody cares whether you see yourself as gay or straight? Then, for example, male friendships could be as relaxed as those of Jonas and Philip in Nils Bökamp's film "You and I", in which a hitchhiker throws a male friendship off balance.
Photographer Jonas (Eric Klotzsch) met British man Philip (George Taylor) during a study visit to London. For his German friend and former flatmate, the fact that he likes men is nothing to talk about. Just as little as the break-up with his girlfriend, which Jonas, the player type, has just gone through.
In a campervan, the two of them set off on a photo trip through the Uckermark, Germany's loneliest region. "With 150,000 inhabitants, the district has half as many people as the Berlin neighbourhood of Neukölln," Philip reads from the travel guide in respectable German. "According to UN statistics, the area has the status of 'uninhabited'." And indeed, they hardly encounter any other people on their little tour. Instead, they pee on the ruins of Nazi sites, roam through the sprawling fields and meadow landscapes and fool around naked by lonely lakes. All of this is wildly captured on camera.
A summer idyll with handsome gentlemen
Nils Bökamp has captured scenes of great light-heartedness and familiarity in an almost paradisiacal setting in the middle of the Brandenburg countryside. A summer idyll with handsome gentlemen between cornfields and rustling treetops - until this young Polish hitchhiker named Boris (Michal Grabowski) runs up to them.
The new man shakes up Jonas and Philip's hitherto carefree friendship. At first, the boyish Boris seems to have a hard time accepting how open Philip is about being gay. But then they unexpectedly end up in bed together. Surprisingly, it is Jonas who now has a problem with this. He reacts to Philip's open-hearted courtship first with annoyance, then with obvious jealousy, before finally fighting for his friend. Three is usually one too many. Boris was obviously absolutely necessary as a catalyst, but now he is bid a friendly but firm farewell.
A little too low tension
The 37-year-old Berlin director Nils Bökamp, who has so far mainly attracted attention with television documentaries (most recently with the arte production "Weil ich bin wie ich bin" about homosexual artists and the fight against homophobia), takes his time to tell this unagitated story, which is perhaps told with a little too little tension. He places all the more trust in the natural, seemingly improvised interplay between his actors. They succeed in allowing the tensions and rapprochements between the three men to happen quite casually instead of explaining them down to the last emotion.
And so even in the final picture, months after this summer trip, we don't know exactly how things have actually developed between Philip and Jonas. His photos from the Uckermark trip are now hanging on the walls of a gallery and Philip kisses him gently on the neck at the vernissage. What does this tender gesture mean? Are they lovers or just close friends? And are such categorisations still in keeping with the times? At least for Nils Bökamp and his protagonists, such categorisation is not really relevant.
"You and I". D 2014. director Nils Bökamp, mwith Eric Klotzsch, George Taylor, Michal Grabowski. 82 minutes, German/Polish/English OF, partly subtitled in German. Cinema release: 17. 9.
Trailer http://www.critic.de/film/you-and-i-8614/trailer/
In the cinema at the gay film night in September. All dates at www.Gay-Filmnacht.de
