Desire Lines (2024)

Desire-Lines-(2024)
Desire Lines (2024)

Samuel R. Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue is one of my positive views: it combines memories and historical examination of gay culture in New York’s theaters and the analysis of cruising as a pastime. Watching Deuce, he viewed the same gentrification, fostered by a physical and social boxing-in of the urbanscape, in important part caused by the cynical partnership of developers and politicians designed to ‘clean up’ the social practices of an entire community. Thus, these lives, Delany’s life, became poorer; they became relatively more “decent,” thus more commonplace and limited to the alien realm of professional contact. What was lost was a mediated authentic connection. Things are quite different today than in the 90s for example but the slogan goes the wheel of a lifestyle cycle the deviance, its acceptance, and monetization have never stopped turning. As witnessed in Desire Lines, Times Square Red, and Times Square Blue played an integral role in the insights of the film. desertly edited drama, Jules Rosskam’s hybrid film, manages to weave in several empathy-inducing interviews with trans men about their struggles of intimacy within an alien right-wing world.

This story aspect is so basic, going through the motions, carrying the attention to the sparse sexual interplay of someone talking to a bunch of nonactors played by actually interesting people. Rosskam leaves it all to us to listen to quiet scenes, such as conversations during research visits of archive officer Kieran (Germaine Theo) with American researcher Ahmad (Aden Hawimi). Professionally, the two are constantly intruding on each other, brooding over what seems to be a fourth dimension in their grids of view. Based on a claymation daydream come into rehearsal, directed by Ahmad’s visions incorporated into the scene what could have almost been bathhouses and bookstores in Boystown, that seemed so distant. Naked bodies everywhere find the content is a rough outline of what appears to be a very rich environment.

More powerful are the views on the correspondence and archival materials, that endeavor to evoke the almost intangible feeling associated with the queer community captured in vintage magazines or personal ads. It is also a broadening of the research because the intention is to take us through space and time, to show that the lives of those who are on the edges of society and are captured in these crumbling newsprint papers still elicit sobering emotions that are relevant in this day and age. Because history is of great fascination to you, it makes one feel zealous for everyone’s appreciation of the fact that these lives lived can still reach you. History is often the most potent fuel for hyperfervor.

Kieran and Ahmad do not explicitly indicate that they came across the materials in the Leather Archives & Museum based in Chicago and for the record, Desire Lines was not filmed there, as its creators have chosen a shabby and scaffolding-clad office building to be the location for the film however, given that deeming it a sauna ampoule, Steamworks, later on in the film and that most of the characters are similar faces in Chicago’s LGBTQ space, this is the objective. Still, there is no synergy of spatiality in Desire Lines and there is also very little sense of self.

Trying to remain true to its fictional confines does not allow Desire Lines to fully shine; it only does so when bringing forth the interviews of its interviewees. Suffering from dramatic insecurities as it does, one does get the impression that this is some academic piece that has tried to ‘cross boundaries’ so as to do other things that are purely multimedia for the sake of it, the actual sociological work done as the film is, however, can be rather fun to watch. The trans men that it interviews are very active and funny, and quite clearly, are quite accustomed to sharing their own lives in the raw. Who else is going to stick up for them or their needs?

Across generations and ethnicities, in a clear and precise language, they tell about today’s problems of queer life, the intersection of their identities, and sexualities, and how it is a source of tension and even violence in everyday circumstances. Somebody having a flaming case of deal-breaker syndrome, or even worse, somebody having a fetish. Thrust up in a cis gay ghetto and yet guilty for wanting to mate with his white gay cismen. And feeling like frauds, while being completely out of bounds in terms of getting adequate medical support. The scenes where two participants appear at once are among the best, and they explode with drama. It’s engaging, warm, and reminiscent of gossiping with friends while grabbing a drink preferably a cocktail.

In fact, they all have greater screen presence than the actors fidgeting with time in between the moments.

But when Rosskam unwinds past this disjointed shoehorned meet-cute, poorly written, and even cringeworthy, I can only feel outrage. It is not just in action where timing, cutting, or performances are set up. One might suggest that the story feels rather like a queer romance somehow shoehorned into an HR training video montage for its lack of perspective, and the plot twists turn out to be far too cliché all in the name of making a point. Other than the simply boring topics (an HIV scare!), Ahmad’s Iranian Americaanness would seem to be invoked only to create a spectacle for his white companion. No, Ahmad does not really speak about how that shapes his queerness; yes, Kieran does make Azerbaijani remarks on his culinary expertise as he has never eaten anything but a lettuce leaf.

Perhaps, if Desire Lines did not make it a point to feature a cast full of eye-catching interviewees in the form of trans men, its attempts at not being merely a documentary would not be so dire. This intent is rendered in great detail by using too many tracking shots of deserted corridors, tedious computer interface scrolling through different folders, and the once-cited bond diverts attention from the non-fiction pieces that made the cross-temporal links that the fiction has been undergoing, long ago. While these men talk, laugh, argue, and relate, truthfully queer life seems to hang in the air. The most appropriate action is to allow us to inhale it

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