Childhood sexual abuse meets the cult of American macho in Travis Mathews' DISCREET

Possibly as dark, dismal and depressing a movie as you are likely to encounter, DISCREET, the new film from Travis Mathews (writer and co-director of Interior. Leather Bar.) is also worth seeing for a number of reasons -- starting with the fact of its remarkable subtlety. 

Mr. Mathews (shown at right) doesn't slap us in the face with anything. And considering the subjects he's dealing with -- childhood sexual abuse, revenge, murder, suicide, prostitution, group sex in blindfolds, and homosexualty trying its damndest to disguise itself as the activity of really macho men -- this is quite a feat. Instead, Mathews parcels out his information via visuals and sounds, memories and current activity that come to us in small, oblique shards that we must piece together.

Piece them we do. And, boy, is the finished product ugly. 

The movie's non-hero, Alex (played in properly dark, if one-note fashion by Jonny Mars, above), is carrying around a load of traumatic memory. Instead of trying to work this out via more usual routes -- a therapist, perhaps -- he has taken to arranging oddball group sex sessions between men (below), while simultaneously stealing their money;

hiring a young man to do who-knows-what with the very fellow, now old and infirm (Bob Swaffar, at left, below), who molested Alex in his younger days; fellating and/or jacking off a local wealthy Hispanic man in his sauna (João Federici, shown at left, two photos down); and then onwards to actions that are much, much worse.

The breadth (if not the depth) of the despicable goings-on here is near breathtaking, and yet Mathews gives it to us as though these were merely every-day events. (Perhaps, for those engaging in them, they are.) This makes it seem all the more awful. Intercut with the degradation is the interesting web site of a young and pretty Asian woman with whom Alex seems to want to connect.

Yet despite this tiny morsel of hope, along with the attempt of Alex's mother to share her son's life in some small way, our boy is dead set on a course of major destruction. Throughout, the filmmaker never strays from his oblique style, dark content and refusal to provide us with one bit of the usual positive spin. The result is one of the more unnerving, queasy-making movies in recent memory. And yet, due to Mathews' subtle, indirect approach, TrustMovies does not remember a single moment of overt violence, blood nor gore to be seen. Yet all of this is present, somehow, via the unspoken "threat."

Discreet opens this Friday, June 1, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 and simultaneously will be available via VOD. The movie is certainly worth a look -- if you're ready for something strange and about as far from feel-good as you can imagine.

Hot, hard, and rather enjoyable: James Franco and Travis Mathews' INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR

After making the rounds of some festival circuits (Sundance, Berlin, in Turkey and Taiwan, and then various GLBT fests), INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR. -- the Cruising-inspired sort-of documentary from our current Renais-sance "Entertainment" Man, James Franco (below, second from left), and the upcoming video doc writer/director who seems to specialize in full-bodied, hard-core gay couplings that appear as real as they do genuinely interesting, Travis Mathews (shown at left, below) -- finally opens theatrically here in New York City. (It played in Los Angeles back in early January.)

Because this film lasts but 60 minutes, its distributor Strand Releasing, has added to the program a worthwhile shorter "short" by both men: Franco's five-minute The Feast of Stephen and Mathews' 15-minute I Want Your Love. Overall, this adds up to a worthwhile look at the work of both men, while providing -- for those who appreciate this sort of thing -- some hot, gay sex experienced by real characters. For those new to gay sex or who may want to find out more about it, as well expand their viewpoint on the coupling possibilities in this great wide world of ours, the program may be an eye-opening (or -closing), as well as a mind-expanding experience.

The filmmakers seem interested in all of the above, and while the largest audience for this will undoubted by gay and bi-sexual, Franco and Mathews make it clear that they intend (in fact, they do outright) to question things like the western word's great interest in depicting violence on screen, along with its great fear of doing the same thing with sex. This, of course, is not a new idea. TrustMovies himself has been asking that question for decades, with the major answer arising from the stranglehold that organized religion, followed by (or incorporated in) the effect that "tradition" has on the general public.

The two shorts, which I presume (as at the press screening) will be shown first, lead us nicely into the heart of the matter. In The Feast of Stephen, Franco, who directed and wrote the screenplay (inspired by a poem by Anthony Hecht), takes us quickly and effectively into the masochistic wet dream of a gay young man as he watches a group of his classmates play basketball. He disrobes them and has them attack him and finally fuck him and then rub dog-shit in his face. This could also perhaps be the sadistic wet dream of one of the boys who attacks our "hero." Either way, the movie is short, sharp and entirely credible look at the forbidden.

In I Want Your Love, on the other hand, two young men (Jesse Metzger above, right, with Brenden Gregory), obviously good friends, lounge about  in one of their bedroom, chatting about life and friends and what not. Slowly, it becomes clear that one is sexually attracted to the other but that they have not, up till now, acted on that. They do, and what follows is around ten minutes of pure sex. It is a delightful, sexy turn-on to view, and because we've gotten more than a whiff of who these guys are, it also seem like watching a couple of friends at play in the fields of the lord. Well, someone's lord, anyway. Mathews avoids the "sleaze" angle that so many porno films, gay or straight, insist on and instead gives us two people exploring and enjoying sex. Gosh, how riveting and transporting. And unusual.

Interior. Leather Bar. ostensibly wants to explore by some sort of re-creation, the said-to-be 40-minute segment from the movie Cruising that went missing in order for the film to be released theatrically back in 1980. But there is more going on than mere re-creation. So we meet the "cast" of this new footage: some gay, some straight, some perhaps still closeted. Chief among these is actor Val Lauren (above in close-up and below, left), a long-time friend of Franco who explains that, though he doesn't fully understand what his friend (and maybe idol) is doing, he so believes in Franco that he will play his part the best he can.

Lauren tells us that he is indeed straight and that he is not playing Al Pacino, the star of Cruising, but rather the character that Pacino was acting -- which was a straight cop going undercover to ferret out a murderer in the gay community. This works on a couple of levels, for Pacino presumably is straight, and so both actors were/are forced to come to grips with getting up close and personal with a community composed of the "other." Both performances reflect this to some degree, and Lauren's as well as the filmmakers' exploration of this -- in talks with his girlfriend, another good friend, and some of his fellow actors -- is pointed and unsettling.

There are a couple of hard-core sex scenes within this hour-long film featuring actors in the cast of the "new footage" doing things pretty normal for a leather bar back in the day -- some cocksucking, a little S&M -- but likely to curl the toes of newcomers to the scene. Yet the reigning input here would seem to suggest to viewers, not to mention the actors, "Man up, honey; it's good for you!" I think Mr. Franco would subscribe to this, though Mr. Mathews has clearly moved far beyond that hurdle.

Overall, this program's a good one: expansive and ground-breaking for some; interesting, hot, funny and plain enjoyable for more seasoned veterans. Interior. Leather Bar. opens today in New York City at the IFC Center, along with the ongoing James Franco festival. Click here to see showtimes and which other Franco films are scheduled for that day.