Saint-Narcisse - Lilith Likes to Watch

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Title: Saint-Narcisse
Year: 2020

Starring: Félix-Antoine Duval, Tania Kontoyanni, Alexandra Petrachuk

Director: Bruce La Bruce

Synopsis: Dominic’s fetish is… himself. Nothing turns him on more than his own reflection. That’s why discovering that he has a twin brother, raised in a remote monastery by a depraved priest, causes him major consternation. Fate brings the two young men back together again, and their fraternal relationship is torn between sex, revenge and redemption. - Via Letterboxd

Lilith's Notes: The classic myth of Narcissus...gone sexual!

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"We're family"

By the time I post this review it will be the final week of Pride month. You know what we don't do during Pride? We don't ban queer film. Decisions and follow through like that are what is called "not a good look."

Saint-Narcisse had been on my list for a while and I was planning on getting to it eventually but this news made it a high priority.

Saint-Narcisse follows the tale of Dominic (played by Félix-Antoine Duval), a kind young man who cares for his ailing grandmother (played by Angèle Coutu). He finds in her possession several letters that were from his birth mother. So, he hops onto his motorcycle and heads to the small town of Saint-Narcisse to find her. It is said that she is a witch, and he finds her (played by Tania Kontoyanni) living in a cabin in the woods with a young woman, Irine (played by Alexandra Petrachuk).

Dominic and Irine don’t get along very well. Irine feels he is unwelcomed and Dominic is confused by the relationship between the two women. Once his mother tells him that story…

I’m gonna be honest. I’m very confused about the order of some of the events in this film. We see a scene, then we hear memory voice-over of the same scene five seconds later. So let’s just get to the crux of the story, okay?

Dominic finds Daniel (also played by Félix-Antoine Duval), his identical twin. They chase one another through the woods and after a face to face confrontation, they agree to meet again in two days.

Dominic tries to tell his mother and Irine about his twin but they have their doubts. That night, as Dominic takes pictures of himself, Irine watches in the window, and it’s heavily implied she pleasures herself but it is not explicit at all. Mother looms over the scene.

In the monastery, the head priest, Father Andrew (played by Andreas Apergis) is abusing Daniel and filling his head with notions that his is Saint Sebastian reborn.

The brothers meet up again and fuck. Dominic learns that Daniel always knew he had a twin, and Daniel learns their mother is alive. Once Daniel admits Father Andrew is abusing him, they switch places.

Daniel, the mother and Irine race to the monastery to save Dominic from Father Andrew and his insane tortures.

In the end they all live happily ever after.

This movie is not explicit at all. There is some nudity but it’s not sexualized and the sex is completely obscured. I imagine this film got some pushback for being ideologically sensitive. Is it transgressive? Sure. Psychosexual? Well, you can’t have a Narcissus story with out a bit of a mind-fuck now can you?

Did I like it?

I don’t know. I liked parts of it, but I truly found the storytelling to be very confusing, and often times, meandering. The music was right out of the 70’s and character motivations seemed kind of random.

There felt like there was little distinction between Dominic and Daniel. One second the mother is encouraging Dominic to pursue Irine and then the next she’s yelling at him that “This has to stop!” I’m not even certain that the grandmother character even died.

It feels, I don’t know, dated? Like it would have been something I would have stumbled across on Showcase in the 2000s, not a movie that was made in 2020.

But, that doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that it exists at all, and certain entities are removing it from their platform. According to the article I read, this is the second time this film company was shunned by Amazon, who stated…

“the movie contained “offensive content” that clashed with the streamer’s guidelines.”

Bitch, you distributed The Voyeurs which is as explicit as you can possibly get in mainstream. We all know the real reason.

Like I said at the beginning of this review: It’s Pride Month, and this little debacle looks real, real bad.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was all a publicity stunt. Maybe it is, but if so, I’m not mad at it. I watched a movie. A transgressive movie about brothers who like to kiss, and who could stay mad at that?

But really, this whole review is just a vehicle to say one thing…

Seek. Out. Banned. Art.

Best Moment: The love scene between Dominic and Daniel.

Worst Moment: The very confusing editing

LILITH'S SCORE: 3.5/5 - The ending reveal bumped it up half a point.

Until next time, my voracious voyeurs. I’m Lilith, and I’m always watching.