Passages
Brutally funny, poetic, and sexy drama about the love triangle between two gay men and a female French teacher. With Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos.
On the final day of his shoot in Paris, German filmmaker Tomas is visibly tense. He is all stern exactitude as he explains to his extras just precisely how to position their hands or what their motivation is as they walk down a flight of stairs – right up until the final slate. At the wrap party, Tomas falls first into the arms of his British husband Martin, but then he meets a young primary school teacher, Agathe. A dance develops into a flirtation and then into a passionate night together. The next morning, Tomas proudly tells Martin that he has slept with a woman. As this one-night stand grows into something more, the relationship between the two men begins to change. When Martin also takes in a new bedmate, this is unbearable for Tomas.
PASSAGES’ greatest asset is the intense acting by three of today’s best actors: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos. The fact that American filmmaker Ira Sachs (LOVE IS STRANGE, KEEP THE LIGHTS ON) shot his new film in Paris with a European cast is no coincidence: his personal, non-prudish relationship dramas are a better fit with the European than the American cinema tradition. With surgical precision, Sachs dissects the mutual power relations in this love triangle characterised by passion, jealousy, and narcissism. Who is using whom? And how open can a relationship be?