At first glance, \u201cEl Principe\u201d \u2013 the new-to-America prison drama from Chilean filmmaker Sebasti\u00e1n Mu\u00f1oz \u2013 might appear to be nothing more than just another entry in a long line of homoerotic fantasies paying homage to a certain fetishized image of hyper-sexualized, violent masculinity that originated generations ago in the underground history of queer culture.<\/p>\n
That assessment would not be altogether wrong, but it takes on a new perspective \u2013 and acquires a mantle of higher respect \u2013 with the knowledge that it won the prestigious \u201cQueer Lion\u201d prize at the Venice Film Festival<\/strong> when it premiered there in 2019. Deepening its pedigree even more is the fact that it directly connects to an important, if obscure, slice of queer history in its own right.<\/p>\n Mu\u00f1oz\u2019 film, which dropped on VOD and DVD in the U.S. under its translated title, \u201cThe Prince,\u201d on July 7, is based on a little-known novel of the same name by Mario Cruz. Written in the early \u201870s, its explicit depiction of homosexuality made it impossible to distribute through Chilean bookstores at the time, but it nevertheless gained an eager cult audience who could find it sold only in the newsstands of Santiago\u2019s San Diego Street. Cruz never wrote another book, and his contribution to the Chilean queer underground\u2019s cultural imagination had faded, along with his name, by the time the filmmaker picked up an old copy of \u201cEl Principe\u201d at a used book store.<\/p>\n Says Mu\u00f1oz in a director\u2019s statement, \u201cI did not expect that behind what seemed a cheap erotic novel I would discover an amazing portrait of 1970s Chilean society\u2026 As a gay man in his 40s, and part of a generation that won the right of being homosexual without euphemisms, I could not even imagine how disruptive this book was for its time.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspired to take the story to the big screen, the filmmaker penned (with Luis Barrales) an adaptation, which embraces both a stylized and naturalistic cinematic approach as it unfolds the allegorical tale of Jaime, a 20-year-old narcissist who is sent to prison after murdering his own best friend. Frightened and alone, he is taken under the wing of an older inmate known as \u201cThe Stallion,\u201d a career gangster with influence and powerful connections who exerts a firm control over his fellow prisoners. What starts out as a quid-pro-quo \u201cprison marriage\u201d develops into something deeper as Jaime finds unexpected connection and tenderness with his protector, and the pair form a bond that approaches something deeper. In the harsh and repressive prison environment of 1970s Chile, however, it doesn\u2019t take long before cellblock politics intrude upon their brief idyll, and both younger and older man are dragged toward their respective fates by the rivalries and power struggles of the condemned.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult, perhaps even impossible, not to look at this audacious film without reckoning with the influence, traced through both its source material and the cinematic heritage of which it is a part, of Jean Genet. For those unfamiliar, he was a French author, playwright, and philosopher who went from an early life of hustling, vagrancy and crime in the sexual underworld of mid-20th-century Europe to establishing himself through his work as a leading countercultural figure, before finally assuming a late-in-life role as a fierce political activist. An early champion of queer visibility, he was an icon in his own lifetime for his unapologetic homosexuality and a subversive literary output that directly challenged the era\u2019s rigid standards of \u201cdecency\u201d by pushing a perspective, informed by existentialism, that flew in the face of social norms. The world we see in \u201cThe Prince,\u201d with its aggressively macho posturing and deliberately provocative sadomasochistic overtones, may be familiar to a generation of gay men who grew up with imagery from artists like Tom of Finland and the significance of leather and fetish culture within their community\u2019s collective imagination \u2013 but if so, it\u2019s almost certainly because of Genet, who enshrined his own real-world experience and transformed it into the heightened and erotically charged fantasy he depicted in his novels, poems, and plays.<\/p>\n In bringing Cruz\u2019 lurid-yet-profound novel to the screen, Mu\u00f1oz doubles down on the influence that surely informed its original author as well, drawing heavily from the imagery of Genet\u2019s only film (the 1950 short, \u201cUn Chant d\u2019Amour\u201d) as well as from \u201cQuerelle,\u201d the 1982 adaptation by German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder of one of the writer\u2019s best-known novels.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a perfect fit, unsurprisingly. The director gives us a film designed to simultaneously shock and arouse us \u2013 frequent full-frontal nudity, explicit and sometimes graphic depictions of gay sex, a relentless blurring of the lines between violent impulse and sexual attraction \u2013 and refrains from any temptation to sentimentalize or equivocate. These moments are consciously theatrical, heightened by overt subtext and accentuated by heavily symbolic visual composition; they are also powerfully erotic, capturing the transgressive, forbidden appeal of jailhouse sex without trying either to stigmatize it or to \u201cpretty it up,\u201d as many contemporary films do \u2013 if they even dare to address it at all.<\/p>\n Yet at the same time, Mu\u00f1oz film provides an unavoidable contemporary perspective, simply by virtue of having not been made decades ago. The fetishization of violently toxic masculinity captured in \u201cThe Prince\u201d may have been embraced by Genet and others of his generation as a subversive response to cultural repression, but many modern observers tend to read such homoerotic fantasy tropes of that era as expressions of internalized homophobia. It can\u2019t be denied that there\u2019s a lot to reconcile for post-equality audiences in a story that explores and even sexualizes the subject of shame, guilt, and inflexible gender expectations on the queer psyche; but greater awareness can lead to greater understanding, and knowing the incalculable damage that is done by these things lends a poignancy to the story that only reveals itself when we look past our current \u201cwokeness\u201d to see the humanity clearly on display under the surface, allowing us to discover our compassion for these lost souls no matter how problematic we may find their behavior to be.<\/p>\n Credit for that should also be shared with a cast headed by young Chilean TV actor Juan Carlos Maldonado, who brings an aloof self-absorption to the title role while also revealing the turmoil of a sensitive soul trying to find his place in a world that doesn\u2019t have a place for him. He\u2019s aided by strong support from Alfredo Castro as his older lover\/surrogate father figure, as well as by performances from Gast\u00f3n Pauls and Lucas Balmaceda as a rival couple in whom their relationship is mirrored.<\/p>\n It might go without saying that \u201cThe Prince\u201d is not a film that everyone will find appealing. Still, audiences with an appreciation for the queer heritage it represents \u2013 or simply an enthusiasm for challenging cinema \u2013 are sure to find it more than worth their time.<\/p>\n After all, who doesn\u2019t enjoy a good prison fantasy once in awhile?<\/p>\n