BEING AT HOME WITH CLAUDE examines the angst of a male hustler who murders his lover during sex. Structured as an interrogation that leads to a confessional monologue, the film is long on histrionics and short on intrigue.
Two men have sex on the floor next to the kitchen table. In their passion, the table is jostled and a knife falls to the floor. As they reach orgasm, one man grabs the knife and slashes his partner's throat. The killer (Roy Dupuis) leaves the Montreal apartment and runs through the city,
stopping to make a phone call.
Later, an enraged inspector (Jacques Godin) interrogates the murderer in a judge's chamber. The murderer admits to the murder, but won't explain anything. The inspector has many questions. Why did the murderer call the cops when he could have disappeared? What was the motive for the killing
(since no money was stolen)? Why has the killer decided to hole up in a judge's chamber and alert a newspaperman to the story?
During the interrogation, the inspector reveals a few details. The murdered man, Claude (Jean-Francois Pichette), was a bisexual who had seen the killer, Yves, for the last month. Yves came to the judge's chamber because he hoped the threat of a scandal could be used as a bargaining chip.
Gradually, Yves begins to talk. He recalls the night he picked up Claude, and the rare sense of intimacy he felt. When the inspector proposes that Yves was stoned when he slashed his lover, Yves starts to confess. "I wasn't stoned, it was worse than that," says Yves. "I was in love." In a lengthy
monologue, Yves explains that as they made love he realized that their bliss together would never last, and so he killed Claude. The confession over, Yves throws the judge's keys on the table and is led away.
BEING AT HOME WITH CLAUDE asks a lot of its audience, but it deserves very little. Yves's brutal killing hardly inspires sympathy, and his endlessly rambling confession is too full of self-pity to alter one's initial impression. Almost completely devoid of mystery--Yves' hysterical behavior
makes it obvious the murder was some warped crime of passion--director Jean Beaudin's film turns into one gay man's diatribe on love and longing. While his film does reflect the fury and desperation of a lonely hustler, that's all it does. Beaudin's anti-hero feels trapped, and so does the viewer.
(Violence, adult situations, sexual situations.) leave a comment