One of the favorite movie categories that all Queerguru reviewers love is one we call ‘downright weird,’ and this debut movie from French filmmaker Manoel DuPont fits it perfectly.  His film is in the vein of the exceptional absurdist comedies of fellow Frenchman Quentin Dupieux,  whose work …….like ‘Wrong‘ and “Rubber‘ are such firm favorites of ours.

Avant/Apres (Before/After) is an offbeat gay buddy movie starring two non-actors in what we are never sure is a documentary or a work of fiction.  It’s the tale of two social misfits who initially meet when one is hitchhiking and the other gives him a lift. There is very little logic to their story, but the one thing that cements their friendship is that they are both balding.  So Jeremy (Jeremy Lamblot), who has just inherited money from his father’s recent death. pays for both of them to fly to Turkey to have hair transplants.  Baptiste (Baptiste Leclere) goes along with it all without question as he believes that he is not only reincarnated, but this could repeating part of one of his previous lives 

There is zero sexual chemistry between the two of these seemingly hetro-normative men but nevertheless, one night in the hotel in Istanbul,  Jeremy pushes their two beds together. And then the next night, they start to kiss and explore each other’s bodies, but DuPont lets us guess if they actually have sexual intercourse

When the film is not a travelogue, DuPont takes his cameras into the operating room when both men are under the knife.  Much to much detail for squeamish people like our reviewer!

What happens next is (like all of this film) completely unpredictable and unexplainable but nevertheless we found it so totally compelling we were spellbound to the end.  

Avant/Apres is defintely an acquired taste but if you share our penchant for absurdist movies, you  will not want to miss this