Roman Zabarauskas is one of a very rare breed.  Not only he is a queer filmmaker in Lithuania, a country not exactly well- known for its LGBTQ cinema, but he has a refreshing approaching to powerful storytelling.  This is just his 4th feature (we loved The Lawyer his 3rd film)  but it shows a maturity and a remarkable curiosity of how queer stories should be told.

The Writer is a two hander about an unexpected reunion between two ex lovers.  Thirty years ago, Russian born Kostas (Bruce Ross) emigrated from Lithuania to America, leaving behind his lover, Dima (Jamie Day), who he met during their mandatory service in the Soviet army. Following the publication of Kosta’s new book, 1990, Dima arrives in New York under the pretense of a job interview. The real reason he’s travelled to America is to discuss Kostas’ latest work, and re-visit their break up which they had avoided talking about at the time.

What the film captures is a long overdue intimate conversation between these two 60+ year olds.  It starts awkwardly with both men being guarded and skirting around the issues they will eventually get too, but as onlookers we are never really sure of either man’s intentions or desires.  There are parts of their conversation that is over intellectualized and risks losing our interesting in how this will all pan out in the end.

However despite this the two sterling understated performances keep us intrigued to find out if all this banter and conversation will be able to tie up all the loose ends of their break up.

Kudos to Zabarauskas for his choice of making a queer film that not only focuses on older men but one that attempts to analyze such a deep and profound relationship and is totally devoid of the usual melodrama….. and also keeps us throughly entertained at the same time. Its a great edition to the canon of queer cinema 

 

Queerguru reviewed this film at image+nation. Montreal LGBTQ film festival