Bishonen (1998)

lindo

pensando sobre quão conectadas as pessoas podem estar entre si, como o amor perpassa de pessoa por pessoas e as coisas que ele nos força a fazer. tentar negar quem você é, é uma batalha que se perde mesmo antes de se começar a lutar. se torturar por achar que você não merece algo como o amor é um tipo de autoflagelo que ninguém deveria impor a si mesmo.

bishonen mostra como o mundo pode ser pequeno, mas quão grande pode ser o sentimento humano. estou meio hipnotizado como as relações e encontros humanos são demonstrados, como se tivesse de fato uma linha que está conectando tudo por onde ela passa. o formato como o filme é gravado nos aproxima dos personagens trazendo a sensação de que hora estou andando ao lado deles e outra estou espiando no canto de um cômodo ou observando do outro lado da rua. existe uma individualidade entre cada personagem que nos faz ter empatia por cada luta que eles estão travando, assim como um sentimento de esperança para que o encontro seja uma permanência. sinto que existe uma nuance em um amor comprado e um amor genuíno, e o fato desse amor não se agarrar somente ao romântico, é o que me fez vibrar tanto pelos personagens.

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Love is the story of a moment.

"Bishonen" is an old film, like many other old films, slow-paced, told largely through the narrator's voice, with a gloomy, suffocating atmosphere, not rich in details but very poetic, very romantic.

Honestly, if this were a modern film, it probably wouldn't be classified as "classic" and wouldn't be mentioned much, but considering the era when the film was released, I understand why nearly 30 years later, people still talk about it so much. The film is slow, but not lacking in "drama"; after all, it's still an old-fashioned love story, still the typical way of portraying homosexual people, especially those in the service industry. Love in the film is truly the love of moments.

We can't blame the film for not developing characters or emotional progression deeply enough, because it seems they fell in love from the first moment they saw each other, just like how other love stories come and go—all in an instant when their eyes meet. Besides the love story, the story of those who are cruel, moments of reckless passion that quickly fade, this also seems to be a story about loneliness, the dark knots inside people. Psychological issues, family and social expectations, prejudices... exist just in one look from the father. And Sam's death. One person's death perhaps can't change much, like ripples disappearing, submerged in water, except that love is something that doesn't die with the person. Actually, the film talks about love, but doesn't talk (enough) about the love between the two main characters; in the end, it's just Sam, Jet, A Ching, each having loved and been loved.

The ending for homosexual love films in this era is still shrouded in tragedy. People are pessimistic, putting a full stop to almost every love story, everything is always chaotic, messy, and ends with one or two deaths, either physical or spiritual. What that pessimistic view wants to reflect, or what common truth it tries to prove, I don't know and don't want to discuss too much; well, knowing that Sam is liberated, and Jet knows he was once loved is enough.

Overall, this is not a pinnacle classic film, nor truly artistic, not characteristic of traditional Hong Kong cinema culture... but it's still a film with sufficient emotional range, creating an atmosphere poetic enough, beautiful enough, cinematic enough for me on a late evening, enough for me to ponder the story of men rejected by society. What I like is the feeling, not necessarily the film itself.

And honestly, this film's popularity and frequent mentions are partly due to the extremely handsome cast of movie stars who give off a very artistic vibe :)

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