HOUSE OF BOYS

Our story begins in Luxembourg, at the start of 1984. Frank (Layke Anderson) is a young homosexual being tormented by the straight kids at the college he attends, and repressed by his uptight parents at home.

One night after telling his younger sister Amanda a bedtime story, he sneaks out of the family home and meets up with best pal Rita (Gintare Parulyte) plus a few more pals. Their original plan was to run away to St Tropez, but Rita reveals they are headed to Amsterdam instead due to a lack of cash.

And so begins narrator Frank’s "fairytale", with himself as the self-confessed "fairy" at the heart of it.

After a couple of months of partying, the bubble bursts when Rita meets Frank outside a nightclub one evening to reveal that she and her partner are leaving to pursue the promise of work in St Tropez after all. It seems that they have tired of young Frank’s desire for a life of "dancing, drinking and fucking".

Dejected and newly homeless, Frank walks the rainy streets with his belongings stuffed into a couple of bags. Eventually he stumbles across a gay club called The House Of Boys. Upon entering, he’s met by stand-offish Jake (Benn Northover). Jake reluctantly refers Frank to the club’s owner, Madame (Udo Kier).

Madame learns that Frank is a "hot" dancer. Which is fortuitous, as he’s always on the lookout for new dancers for his bar. And so, he offers Frank a room and a job.

Frank is allotted a room with Jake, who tells our young narrator not to get any ideas: he’s strictly heterosexual, he insists, and is only there until he can earn enough money for him and his girlfriend to move on.

After sampling the erotic male dancers on the club’s stage, Frank gets to know the other employees a little better behind the scenes. Aside from straight Jake, there’s Angelo (Steven Webb) who dreams of the day he can afford the trip to Singapore for a sex change op, Dean (Luke J Wilkins) the green-Mohawked punk who mumbles by day and parties by night, and Herman (Oliver Hoare) – a youngster who refuses to move into the club’s bedsit backdrop full-time, despite the frequent beatings doled out at home by his drunken father.

Frank, although a likeable chap with a permanently upbeat demeanour, proves to be a rather mixed up soul. He falls for Jake almost immediately, confused by how someone could dance for men and fuck them for money, but insist that he is straight at heart. He quickly grows close to Angelo, enjoying the fact that he confides in him so easily. And he thinks nothing of jumping in the shower with Dean for an impromptu shag.

Lost and far from home, Frank does indeed seem to be in need of steering – despite his constant smile. He finally settles down to focus more intensely on Jake when he overhears a conversation between the latter and his girlfriend Carol (Emma Griffiths Malin), who reveals that she was pregnant but got rid of the baby because of his fucking around.

Jake is left heartbroken, and roommate Frank is there to console him. You can guess what eventually happens. "You guys didn’t have sex, you made love!" exclaims Angelo.

But this is not the happy ending that both deserve. As, just around the corner, a new disease is gathering pace to disturb their community.

This leads to an affecting final third consisting of taut friendships, grim predictability and heartbreaking decisions.

Reportedly the highlight of this year’s London Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, HOUSE OF BOYS boasts performances that are generally good despite some weaknesses due to most players being Europeans speaking English. Kier is obviously a highlight for genre-savvy viewers, impressing here with a character that’s strict behind the scenes, and a flamboyant drag queen on the stage. Stephen Fry adds gravitas in a later role, as a doctor who is full of good intentions but unfortunately doesn’t know enough about the condition he’s trying to treat, although he does get one of the key lines: "there is no such thing as a gay cancer".

In terms of period design, the film boasts an excellent soundtrack of 80s tunes from the likes of Soft Cell, The The and Jimmy Somerville. Hairstyles suit the timing, but little else is taken into consideration. The Amsterdam setting is a mystery, aside from perhaps the sexual liberation identified with the place: the bulk of the film is shot in interiors (in Germany and Morocco), so the placing is otherwise negligible.

Set design and lighting are magnificent throughout though, ensuring HOUSE OF BOYS is one of the most colourful and consistently arresting productions in recent memory.

Director Jean-Claude Schlim utilises slick editing and lavish visuals along with split-screens and a storyline that is broken into acts with their own chapter titles. He also co-wrote the intelligent script with Christian Thiry, resulting in a film that not only holds the attention aesthetically but delivers an involving parable too.

HOUSE OF BOYS comes from Peccadillo Pictures in a nice 16x9 widescreen transfer, benefitting from strong solid colours and stable blacks. There are no issues with excessive noise or edge enhancement, but the picture is impressively sharp at most times.

English audio is a good clean 2.0 mix.

There were no menus, chapters or extras provided on the early screener disc provided for review. But, in terms of presentation alone, it bodes well for the retail DVD release due in August 2011.

HOUSE OF BOYS takes an involving look back at a key time in modern social history, and serves as a timely reminder of a disease that many appear to have grown complacent about. It’s also a highly engaging film with a strong element of human interest at its core.

Review by Stuart Willis