Sequin in a Blue Room
A film that compels attention, especially from gay audiences.
Sequin in a Blue Room looks set to be one of the most successful gay films of recent years and that feels like a safe prediction since there are at least four elements that stand out. Set in Sydney, this Australian movie is absolutely centred on its leading character, the 16-year-old high school student who goes by the name of Sequin. The role marks the first screen appearance by Conor Leach and he carries the film with total assurance making this a debut to remember. But hardly less auspicious is the contribution of Samuel Van Grinsven who is both director and co-writer: he is openly gay, comes from New Zealand and has expressed admiration for the films of Gus van Sant and Gregg Araki while yet finding his very own style in this his first feature.
Moreover, it's not just the names that are new here. The film may show us Sequin living with his dad (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) but, instead of offering the usual generational conflict linked to anxieties about coming out, we are shown a father fully aware of his son's sexuality and even ready to encourage him to explore it. If that attitude reflects the modern world, even more so does the fact that Sequin is regularly dating men using an app, meeting them for a sexual encounter and then blocking them on his phone because he has decided against opting for anything beyond a one-night stand. Also on the app he finds a site advertising group sex in a place called the blue room and chooses to go there willingly accepting the rules summed up by the requirement 'No talking; no names'. What the film shows of Sequin's life-style is frank enough to have earned the film an '18' certificate although it avoids the highly explicit nudity that so often features today in films made with gay audiences in mind. At the same time its view of how so many gay men of a promiscuous nature choose to live today makes this the first film that I have seen that captures this aspect of modern life and that in itself gives this film significance.
Divided into ten segments and sensibly succinct (it lasts a mere 80 minutes), Sequin in a Blue Room announces itself as 'a homosexual film by Samuel Van Grinsven' and given the subject matter it is likely primarily to attract gay viewers. However, the quality of the piece is such that it deserves a wider audience. It is unusually adroit on more than one level. As written, it cleverly allows the material to speak for itself. By that I mean that it avoids expressing any overt moral message directly but instead allows us to see that Sequin's chosen life-style has within it two potential problems. One becomes apparent when one of Sequin's anonymous dates - 'B' (Ed Wightman), a married man in his forties - takes to Sequin strongly enough to resent being blocked after their encounter and consequently sets out to stalk him. The other difficulty that arises is the opposite of that: Sequin himself starts to have deeper feelings following sex with a stranger in the blue room, but this man (Samuel Barrie, well cast) having followed the rules about anonymity is not easily identified and found.
As for the direction, although realism is the key-note Van Grinsven proves that he can go beyond that on occasion. The film's most memorable sequence is undoubtedly the one that introduces us to the blue room itself. Here colour is allowed to take over the screen so as to express the power of the sensuality found in this stylised setting which enwraps all who enter. It could be argued that the film takes this a bit too far when subtitles are used to inform us of what is being said in an unheard exchange of dialogue that breaks the rule of silence. Even so this is a truly imaginative scene although it is not equalled by another episode in the same setting. This later sequence features specifically blue light and harsh words are obviously being spoken but this time we neither hear them nor find them rendered in subtitles.
Such details are certainly questionable, but they are just details. More serious as a defect (but not fatally so even if it confirms my feeling that this is less than a masterpiece) is the characterisation of Sequin's father. Presented initially as both sympathetic to his son's homosexuality and devoted to him, the subsequent changes in his attitude feel inadequately explained by the screenplay. I was also less than fully satisfied by the film's conclusion. It had seemed likely that the final scenes were going to be perfect by finding a satisfying middle course between a devastating ending and one that felt too contrived in order to be upbeat, something memorably achieved in John Sayles's lesbian classic Lianna (1982). In the event, though, having first slightly overindulged the emotion in a scene that looks set to conclude the story, the film chooses to follow on from a fade to black by offering a final scene that contrives to hint at a possible new future for Sequin. I suspect that many audiences will welcome this coda, but artistically I felt that it was the wrong move.
These may sound like fussy objections but Leach is so outstanding and Van Grinsven so promising that I have judged Sequin in a Blue Room by the very highest standards. Everyone interested in gay cinema should seek it out for, whatever its imperfections, it is a very remarkable achievement.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Conor Leach, Samuel Barrie, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Anthony Brandon Wong, Damian de Montemas, Simon Croker, Joshua Shediak, Ed Wightman, Patrick Cullen, Tsu Shan Chambers, Nancy Denis, Darren Kumar.
Dir Samuel Van Grinsven, Pro Sophie Hattch, Screenplay Samuel Van Grinsven and Jory Anast, Ph Jay Grant, Pro Des Anna Gardiner, Ed Tim Guthrie, Music Brent Williams, Costumes William Tran.
Sequin in a Blue Room/Australian Film Television and Radio School-Peccadillo Pictures.
80 mins. Australia. 2019. Rel: 9 April 2021. Available on VOD. Cert. 18.