Un chant d’amour

Because of its explicit homosexual content, Un chant d’amour was long banned and was also disowned by Jean Genet later in his life. Filmmaker and critic Jonas Mekas originally smuggled the film into the US in bits and pieces, hiding them in his clothing. Somewhere between pornography, surrealism, and poetic realism, there is little plot to speak of. It is set in a French prison, where a prison guard takes voyeuristic pleasure in observing the prisoners’ masturbatory acts.
The film exhibits the obvious influence of his friend Jean Cocteau’s filmmaking style as well as the influence of Kenneth Anger’s film Fireworks. Despite this influence, the tone and content is pure Genet. Prisoners, flowers, aggressive sex, unrequited love – all of these are themes in Genet’s written works.
Since Genet always knew that his ‘musical’ film would be a silent one, he created visual correlates to music: such as several dancing scènes. He does not use sound, forcing the viewer to completely focus on close ups of faces, armpits, and semi-erect penises. The film’s sexualized atmosphere has been recognized as a formative factor for the films of Andy Warhol, Jarman and Fassbinder. The scene where the two prisoners share a cigarette by blowing the smoke through a straw into each others’ mouths is undoubtedly one of the hottest moments in movies.