Clean-cut 16 year-old Beni (Vincent Branchet) is a Zurich high school student looking for a better life. That opportunity comes when he goes to a rock concert where he falls madly in love with Fögi (Frédéric Andrau), the handsome gay lead singer of "The Minks". The 26 year-old Fögi is also attracted to the cute youth. He hires him as a roadie and the two begin a wild sex affair that turns into love and devotion for Beni, but soon wears off for the jaded and bored Fögi. Beni is caught in a terrible situation where drug addiction comes into play. Beni, willing victim for his first love, is emotionally eaten alive by his slavish devotion, lust and eventual servitude to the increasingly indifferent Fögi.
The two stay together, but soon sink into alienation, drug addiction and self destruction. Sexual abuse follows as Fögi plays S & M games with Beni and eventually forces him into prostitution to finance his heroin habit. When "The Minks" start running out of gas, Fögi gets into conflicts with some other band members and decides to take a trip to Lebanon to get hashish for dealing. Beni feels lonely and lets himself be picked up by a psychiatrist. When Fögi returns, Beni is forgiven, but it gives Fögi an idea of how he can make money by renting out Beni. The teen must decide to venture into the dark inevitability with his love or jump off.
"F. est un salaud" chronicles the life span of a gay relationship and is quite complex. It captures the romantic, boldly explicit, honest details of two men inextricably intertwined to each other. The early sex scenes are tender and erotic without ever being pornographic, among the most sensual in a gay film. There's a lot of nudity and a lot of bed sex. One of the best scenes in the movie isn't in bed, isn't even overtly sexual, and both men are fully clothed. They're outside, walking together on a hill, enjoying a beautiful afternoon, just sharing their delight in being together. But their joy is drug-enhanced. The two leads deliver great performances, and all the supporting performers are good too, particularly Urs Peter Halter as Fögi's sweet bandmate Töbe, who may be in love with Fögi also.
This compelling Swiss film is electrifying, tender, gentle, and beautiful. Viewers comments are uniformly very favorable, such as, "I realized about halfway through that I was watching one of the greatest love stories ever filmed," and "I've never seen a better performance by any actor in any movie, ever." Rainer Lingk composed the original music. There are also songs from The Velvet Underground and Patti Smith. Marcel Gisler and Rudolf Nadler wrote the screenplay based on Martin Frank's novel. Marcel Gisler directed. In French with English subtitles. The English title is "Fögi is a Bastard".
