Close (2022): queer love, loss and toxic masculinity
THIS ARTICLE HAS SPOILERS
It is fairly common for people of a certain age to lose the love of their lives, after years together. It’s also people of a certain age who lose their first love, and the only thing that’s left is a nostalgic longing. But what if you lose the love of your life, who is also your first love, at a very young age? Navigating love as a youngster is a challenge, and it’s much more difficult when we’re talking about queer love. Luckily for us, there is cinema to work as inspiration and catharsis. A film about the premature loss of a first queer love is the celebrated “Close” (2022), directed by Lukas Dhont and produced by Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) are best friends, almost brothers. They sit together at school, and so close that some girls ask if they are a couple, something Léo quickly denies. This doesn’t stop the boys from picking on Léo, calling him a “fag”. They also laugh at him at hockey practice. Léo doesn’t care: he is happy with Rémi and alongside the friend’s family.
One day, after Léo left the bed where Rémi was sleeping and slept on the floor instead, Rémi changes. He cries that day during lunch seemingly without a reason, and again at school because Léo didn’t wait for him so they could go to school by bicycle together. Next thing we know Rémi committed suicide and Léo has to deal with his absence.
What is often the case is that the sexual awakening happens at the same time as the intelectual awakening. This explains why so many young people fall in love with their teachers — it happened to me: I was not in love with a guy twelve years my senior, I was in love with the subject he teached.
There have been in the past few years many movies about young people who discover they are queer. One of them was the French “Softie” (2021). In it, a pre-teen boy has his married male teacher as his first love — a perfect example of the already mentioned sexual awakening being mixed with the intelectual awakening. Another movie was the Japanese “Monster” (2023). In it, two boys experience bullying, self-loathe and more when they discover they have deeper feelings for each other.
The suicide rate among LGBTQ+ people is higher than among the population in general. According to the Trevor Project, in 2023 41% of the queer people interviewed thought about suicide, with 14% actually attempting it. Fewer than 40% of the interviewed found support in their homes and many were bullied and heard homophobic and transphobic slurs at school. To make things worse, more than half of the LGBTQ+ who sought mental health care weren’t able to find it.
For director and screenwriter Lukas Dhont, “Close” is more about two boys facing for the first time toxic masculinity than about queer love, although he doesn’t shy away when the film is labeled as LGBTQ+. In his words:
“While it is not only about a queer experience, it’s about the young male experience, because young men are not given that space to express themselves in that way. It gives you a place as an audience to interpret that experience as you want. But it’s not about their sexuality, it’s about how their intimacy and their sensuality are looked upon and how we are conditioned to look at it. How we want to compartmentalize everyone into boxes and labels and how we want to put a stamp on that love, and not let that love just exist in its true free form.”
The film was the winner of the Grand Prix at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. At the Magritte Awards, the Belgian Oscars, it accumulated ten nominations and won seven awards, including Best Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design and Most Promising Actor for Eden Dambrine. “Close” was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category and made it to the Top 10 of Best Foreign Films selected by the Brazilian Association of Film Critics.
More than another coming-of-age tale, this is a cautionary tale about toxic masculinity being taught so early in one’s life. Losing your first love to death may be devastating. But losing your first love to prejudice — including a prejudice that grew inside of yourself — is even worse.
