Un Chant d'Amour (Song of Love)

Of asterisk-worthy note for being the only film created by Jean Genet, this 1950 experimental short invokes several themes that permeated the French writer's literary endeavors, including homoeroticism, prison environments, and voyeurism. Unfortunately, working in a silent film medium robbed Genet of the lyrical language that lay at the foundation of his artistic genius. Set in a penitentiary populated by muscular inmates who spend their days dancing in their cells, Un Chant d'Amour centers on a pair of neighboring prisoners who communicate through knocks on their dividing wall, as well as a tiny hole that allows one prisoner to insert a straw through which he blows cigarette smoke into the open mouth of the inmate next door. A prison guard, obviously aroused by viewing the beefcake-behind-bars population, interrupts this nicotine communion by beating the smoking prisoner and forcing a gun into his mouth. But the prisoner mentally escapes his torture by imagining himself in a pastoral romp with his studly next-door neighbor. Genet later disowned Un Chant d'Amour as a pornographic misfire (the film does feature brief explicit shots of masturbation). Presented on a double-disc set, the extensive DVD extras here include an audio commentary by experimental film legend Kenneth Anger on the first disc, as well as a humorous interview with exhibitor/filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who smuggled a print into New York in 1964 for its U.S. premiere (Mekas recalls how the playwright Harold Pinter was recruited to distract U.S. Customs agents while Mekas hid the film in his clothing). The second disc features an hour-shy documentary on Genet and a 1982 interview with the author. Of mild curio interest, Un Chant d'Amour would still be worth considering for academic collections, making this a strong optional purchase. (P. Hall)