Let’s Talk About SEX!
S is for substantial – no porn
E is for experimental, explorative and hopefully entertaining
X is for [insert sexual fantasy or taboo]
“Are you actually completely gay?”. When my friend asked me this question the other day, it was like a tiny little stab into my heart. First of all, I’m not gay. Of course secondly, I can’t find anything wrong with it. You need to know that my friend was asking me this in German and ‘gay’ isn’t necessarily an insult in that language (I’m not sure about English, that’s why I’m emphasizing this). What she meant was that I had characteristics that are usually – and stereotypically – associated with gay men. She was referring to my raving about a movie I had lately seen (by myself) in the theatre: Far From the Madding Crowd. I had told her and another friend how it moved me (usually a rather unemotional persona) to tears more than once and made me believe in true love for the duration of the credits. After my recommendation, my two (female) friends both watched the movie and thought it a) hilarious and kitschy b) dragging and c) were bummed that it wasn’t set in the present time. So they thought I was gay for loving it and super gay for being moved to tears by it.
To discuss this, you must know a little more about the film itself: An adaptation of a novel by Thomas Hardy, the film is directed by the Danish genius that is Thomas Vinterberg. Set in the late 1800s, Far From the Madding Crowd tells the story of the young and free-spirited Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan). Through the course of a few years, she receives wedding proposals from three different men and each time has to decide between her own independence and the advantages of marriage. She refuses a lonesome (and oh-so attractive) sheep farmer (Matthias Schoenaerts), as well as an older, honest and wealthy landowner (Michael Sheen). Both of them stay in her life but don’t make any further avances toward the self-sufficient lady. However, when a showy soldier (Tom Sturridge) enters her life, Bathshaba suddenly finds it hard to resist pleasure.
I recently discovered that I probably (more or less) subconsciously rate films based on how much they turned me on. Not every film (even James Franco can’t distract from the fact that Good People sucked), but good films; films that are to be taken seriously. It is still a thesis, but there is much evidence: I just never feel as strongly about films like The Usual Suspects or Seven Samurai as I do about A Streetcar Named Desire or North by Northwest – and there’s much more where those comparisons came from. So naturally, Far From the Madding Crowd had a subconscious advantage for receiving a good rating from me – it has two attractive male actors in it. However, there isn’t a lot of graphic material in it, so it was mainly my own imagination – triggered by some of the scenes in the film – that, well, excited me. Which actually proves that I’m “actually completely gay”.
However, the more I think about this film, the more I’m convinced that there is more to like than a gorgeous cinematography and secret-looks-because-we-think-we-can’t-be-together-porn. Bathshaba is a very strong character and I’m very happy to see a realistic female character leading a film directed by a guy. Nothing, not even her friendship to another woman, seems like it’s “just” a depiction of what men think women’s lives are like (or were like). Now, the most ingenius thing that Far From the Madding Crowd does is that it shows just how difficult it can (I’m not generalizing) be for strong-minded women to find sexual pleasure – or love.
Of course Bathshaba is attracted to the shepherd she meets early in the film, yet she doesn’t want her life to be reduced to being a wife. The shepherd takes no for an answer and never truly presses the issue again, even though Bathshaba never told him she was not attracted to him. A little romance might have solved the issue. Michael Sheen’s landowner is the less attractive in the trio of men, and strays even further away from the possibility of a sexual relationship with Bathshaba (he actually tells her she doesn’t have to sleep with him if they marry). Of course, when Tom Sturridge’s babe of a soldier (minus the mustache) starts heavily flirting with the poor girl, she isn’t able to resist one bit. She is experiencing true passion for the first time in her life, so it doesn’t matter that the guy’s personality isn’t all that great. She doesn’t want to lose the satisfaction of her desires, so she marries him.
I won’t go deeper into the story now, since it’s spoiler territory from here on, but the point is: Far From the Madding Crowd explores some psychologic (and subconscious, ha!) conflicts rather specific to women, and it does so wonderfully. It’s so good at reproducing these conflicts that I teared up more than once! And I would like to believe that this is not because I’m gay, but because I’m a woman. Right? Or maybe it’s because I have a good taste in movies because clearly, my friends don’t. Right? Actually it might just be the fact that neither Tom Sturridge nor Matthias Schoenaerts aren’t in my life right now but we’ll keep this a secret because I don’t want to sound like a desperate person who uses films high on super-super-super-soft-porn as escapism.