CANNES – Sometimes a good gauge of a director is simply their aesthetic choices. And, often, specific aesthetic choices. For example, one of the hardest things to pull off in filmed content is setting a scene that actually feels like it’s taking place in a modern-day dance club. How do you capture that energy and visual intimacy? It’s something that has perplexed a variety of well-known filmmakers and cinematographers who can’t avoid making their venue seem like a Hollywood sound stage even when they are actually shooting on location. Camille Vidal-Naquet had already garnered this critic’s attention over the first 20 min or so of his feature film “Sauvage” which premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival as part of Critics’ Week, but when Leo (Félix Maritaud) lets it out on the dance floor? Well, a tip of the hat to Mr. Vidal-Naquet and his director of photography Jacques Girault. That was truly superb. Of course, that is hardly the first thing anyone will want to talk about after seeing Vidal-Naquet’s feature debut. The boundary-pushing sex scenes? That’s much more likely.
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At its core, “Sauvage” is a portrait of the aforementioned Leo, a 22-year-old gay hustler in a non-descript small city somewhere in France. Along with a slew of other prostitutes he spends his days on a side street away far from the beaten path where men looking for their services drive by. Even in this modern age of online apps and escort sites, it seems picking up tricks in public is still more common than you might think. And Leo knows he’s just cute and sexy enough to make it through another day selling himself as needs be.
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As Vidal-Naquet follows Leo on his business, it’s painfully apparent that beyond money Leo is looking for any signs of affection he can find along the way. The age of his client doesn’t matter, nor their appearance really. He’s looking for a brief connection, somewhere, with someone. Where his affection truly lies, however, is with Ahd (Éric Bernard), another hustler on the pickup street who dreams of escaping his current live and training to be a pro boxer. Ahd identifies as straight, and Leo knows it, but love is blind, right? The pair dance the night away at the aforementioned gay club, Ahd’s forcefully helps him get his money after a couple stiffs him and they share a bed together in a flat Ahd squats in. That sympathetic and flirtatious friendship only muddles the emotional waters especially when Ahd appears to abandon Leo by moving in with a rich older man.
Vidal-Naquet and the stellar Maritaud (“BPM”) subtly shape Leo with remarkable detail and a heartbreaking inherent conflict. Leo sees nothing wrong with a life that often finds him sleeping in the forest (or sidewalk), drinking from running water in the street or smoking crack with his friends. Leo may not see the world as the rest of society does. Instead, his disconnect with reality isn’t with his actions; it’s with his body. As the movie progresses what is at first, a slight cough gets significantly worse, and he dangerously ignores a doctor’s plea to take antibiotics. There are doors that open up to new worlds for him off the street, but Leo’s inherent desire for a free life may squander those opportunities.
The film’s screenplay is the result of Vidal-Naquet spending three years alongside hustlers in Paris, and those anecdotes clearly are the inspiration for Leo’s encounters. There’s the wheelchair-bound disabled man who can only get sexual release if he pays for it. There’s the eighty-something widower looking for any physical affection he can find even if it’s with another man. And, most disturbingly, the hipper than thou gay couple who treat their whores like a slab of meat (along with a gigantic butt plug used in a manner even some “liberal” viewers will find horrifying).
In order to truly grasp Leo’s disposition Vidal-Naquet refuses to push his profession off-screen and, in a sexual manner, has fashioned the most boundary-pushing film since Gaspar Noe’s “Love” (no small feat, although he manages to avoid visible fluids). In so doing, “Sauvage” captures the multitude of emotion or lack of, that come with Leo’s tricks. There’s jealousy, pain, excitement, cruelty and even monotonous apathy where you’d least expect it. For Leo though it’s what keeps him going. The inherent danger is an unfortunate consequence. But the quiet moments waiting for the next hustle? Dancing till dawn? Lying in the park waiting for what comes next? He’s done this forever. He even tells his doctor he can’t remember how long he’s done it. Why would he give it up for the fear and the seeming entrapment of a “normal” life? That may sound ridiculous to you as you read this on your phone on your lunch break or while jumping in an Uber to brunch, but until you’ve walked in Leo’s footsteps how would you truly know? [A-]
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