J'ai rêvé sous l'eau (2008)

Aspiring musician Antonin (Hubert Benhamdine) is a young man on a quest for love in northern Paris and its adjoining suburbs. A university drop-out, he lives with his mother in poverty. He plays guitar in a band, and has an unrequited crush on the sexy band leader and his best friend Alex (Franck Victor). When Alex dies of a heroin overdose in his arms one night, Antonin is stricken over his loss, and recklessly descends into the seedy, nocturnal world of Paris at night. Urban and nocturnal by nature, he embraces the vibrant energy of the city which leads to some rough, carnal, and violent experiences. He enjoys public gay sex and prostitution as a rent boy.

Seeking consolation for his heartache but indulging only in self-destruction, his life might yet be saved by a beautiful stranger named Juliette (Caroline Ducey), a vivacious beauty with a secret. She needs help even more than he does, and Antonin has a second chance to save the life of someone he loves. He finds tenderness, support and loyalty when he least expects it, showing him humanity and the ability to give a helping hand to another. The film has a "happy ending" which somehow inspires depression.

In this poignant romantic drama, replete with brute emotion and raw lust, a young man travels through the dark heart of Parisian nightlife and the extremes of self-destruction. It tells the story of a bisexual man starving for love who becomes a male prostitute. The film is challenging but the viewer is rewarded with excellent performances, stunning imagery and cinematography, and sexy scenes which are are passionless, explicit, and unsimulated. Dark lighting, underground clubs and grimy alleyways all serve to complement the film's bleak ambiance, which offers little hope for redemption. The most memorable performance is given by Hubert Benhamdine who shows the mental torment suffered by Antonin after Alex's death. After the first half of the movie, it becomes quite slow-moving following the entrance of Juliette. Moreover, "J'ai rêvé sous l'eau" offers little thematically that is new or original, and Benhamdine looks a little too old for the role. Muriel Moreno composed the music score, and Hormoz scripted and directed. In French with English subtitles. The English title is "I Dreamt Under (the) Water".

Bathhouse (2005)

The story revolves around the lives of men who frequent the seedy bathhouse "Klub Hombre" in Manila, the Philippines, where it operates discreetly underground because of frequent raids and arrests by the police. Gay men meet there to relax, unwind, and enjoy sexual contact in the back room. Rico (Ray An Dulay) is a very young nerdy student who is just discovering his sexuality and exploring new worlds as a young homosexual. He has fallen for someone he met on the internet and decides to meet him in person. However, when Rico sings a song he has just composed for his new love, the guy is turned off and leaves him.

Chris (Jet Alcantara) is a veteran hunk at the bathhouse who is bored with the entire scene. Like most men there, he has shared his body with as many men as possible. The director then cuts away from the story to show us how these people meet in real life: through the internet, at the park, cell phones, ads, and so on. Chris has a taste for newbies or freshly out gays. When Rico comes into his life, he sees the potential for a mentor-student relationship, until everything gets too intimate. This mismatched affair sends Rico into a downward spiral through the dingy walls of the bathhouse and through various groups of gays, bi-sexuals and transvestites, and transforms him into just another bitter bitch. He leaves his parents, does not have a job, has sex with every man he meets at the bathhouse--and he manages to do this without spending any money or get a disease. Not a very realistic scenario.

This steamy thriller is about the ideals of a young gay man in love and the practicality of a mature gay man about to retire from a life of cruising. It exposes the cruel world of gays socializing within the dark dingy walls of a bathhouse. The acting is inadequate to good, the dialogue is usually poor, and most of the scenes inside the bathhouse are so dark that one cannot see much of what is happening. But it is an interesting picture of Manila and does show gay life there. The film was helped financially by the Aids Counsel in the Philippines without credit. Jet Alcantara wrote the screenplay, and Crisaldo Pablo directed. In Tagalog with English subtitles.