Un Chant d'Amour (1950) – LGBT Movie Review
A Gay Short Film From Novelist and Playwright Jean Genet
A visceral French gay short film lasting 25 minutes, Un Chant d’Amour meaning "A Song of Love", was Jean Genet’s only foray into cinema. The film was banned in many places after its release for explicit scenes of male sexuality and its non-too-subtle homosexual undertones, but, in spite of this, Un Chant d’Amour has stood the onslaught of time to ring out as one of the defining European gay cinema.
The Plot of Gay Short Film Un Chant d’Amour
On his way to work a prison officer witnesses two inmates unsuccessfully attempting to pass a garland of flowers via their windows. Inside, the officer peeps into the cells. Lucien Sénémaud as a youthful prisoner bearing a Manga-esq Bettie Boop tattoo, dances around his small room. In the cell next to him, an unnamed older man rhythmically taps upon the wall so as to draw the younger prisoner’s attention. The younger prisoner, aware of this, continues his seductive dance before eventually returning the call.
With erotic images of naked gay men inserted throughout, the voyeuristic police officer antagonist in Un Chant d’Amour beats the older convict in an overtly sexual way, putting a gun into the prisoner’s mouth and whipping him with a belt. The older prisoner, however, feels none of this as he slips into an illusory garden where he frolics with his young lover. The guard, perturbed by this impenetrable elation, retreats.
Un Chant d’Amour ends as it began, with the two prisoners attempting to exchange a garland of flowers, until, with the police officer having retired for the evening, the exchange is made, the garland passed and the loving imagery fulfilled.
Un Chant d’Amour as One of the Best Gay Short Films
Does Un Chant d’Amour deserve its place as one of the most influential of gay movies? It is certainly both visually and conceptually striking. Shot completely without sound (though the re-mastered DVD version now contains a wonderful score) this short film says more with its grimy imagery than many full length pieces accomplish. It isn’t particularly elegant, and in fact feels appropriately lumbering and masculine to watch, but each scene’s stride is deliberately clipped and well put together.
The amateur actors, like the aforementioned Lucien Sénémaud (who was also Jean Genet’s lover at the time), are significantly raw enough to add to the meat of this European film, and, either due to Genet’s own choppy editing, or the actors’ emerging talents, performances in Un Chant d’Amour convey an authentic vitality.
Thematically, the homosexual love between the two prisoners in Un Chant d’Amour is transformational, liberating them from the confines of their cell in beautiful shared visions. Being true to the existentialist metaphor, Genet (who also spent time in prison), contrasts this against the solitary guard character who is more of a captive than the entrenched prisoners as a victim of his own ignorance.
A Brief Background to Un Chant d’Amour and Writer Jean Genet
Jean Genet (1910-1986), experimental writer of such novels as Our Lady of the Flowers and stage-plays like The Balcony, distanced himself from Un Chant d’Amour in later life, which seems strange as in making the short movie, Genet risked a great deal.
Un Chant d’Amour was famously smuggled into the United States from France by Jonas Mekas (with a little help from Harold Pinter and a trip to London) by cutting the film up into separate pieces and hiding it within his clothes. In private screenings there would often be police raids, one of which led to the California District Court of Appeals banning the film for obscenity, something which the Supreme Court upheld when challenged.
Un Chant d’Amour as a Piece of Gay Short Film History
Jean Genet’s only film, Un Chant d’Amour is a frenetic annunciation of gay identity, playing with themes from the presence of God to the darkness of humanity, it is a rewarding and explicitly homoerotic love story that, upon release, was far ahead of its time, and therefore must rightly be considered as a landmark in the development of LGBT cinema and European gay short films.
Enjoy this? Click here for a review of modern gay short film O' Beautiful.
Want more suggestions of great gay films? Click here for a list of 7 influential gay themed movies.
- Title: Un Chant d’Amour (A Song of Love)
- Writer/Director: Jean Genet
- Actors: Java, Lucien Sénémaud, André Reybaz, (All Uncredited).
- Run time: 25 Minutes.
- Release: 1950
Un Chant d'Amour - Great Gay Short Films
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Un Chant d'Amour by Jean Genet
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