Eastern Boys Review

Every person is capable of being hunter and prey.  The world is made up of public and private spaces, which we move through with varying degrees of confidence, knowledge, and even swagger, depending on how comfortable our surroundings are, how familiar we are with the people around us. But the world is never safe, and we should never be at ease.  So Robin Campillo tells us in his riveting, strange Eastern Boys, an oddly paced drama that traces a dynamic narrative through tricky territory, packing war, immigration, and gay romance into a seemingly straightforward story of lonely people.

The film opens in a bustling train station, where a roving pack of Eastern European immigrants seek targets for their criminal activities.  They eye prospective targets, dodge security guards, and strike the appearance of upstanding citizens when the need arises.  They come off as harmless hoodlums, probably looking for a pocket to pick or a purse to nick.  But one of them, boyishly handsome Marek (Kirill Emelyanov) catches the eye of lonely businessman Daniel (Olivier Rabourdin).  They arrange to meet at Daniel's apartment the next day, but at the appointed time, the whole gang shows up to ransack and rob him, leaving his apartment in shambles, and almost empty.

Eastern Boys walks a fine line in engendering sympathy for its characters, and disgust.  Both Marek and Daniel are predators, attempting to take advantage of each other with varying success.  That their relationship begins with such seedy intentions, immediately followed by a massive betrayal, makes the rest of the film all the more interesting.  Perhaps out of pity, or out of greed, Marek returns to make good on his original promise, becoming Daniel's lover, and collecting all sorts of material goods as a result.  It's a troubling relationship drawn out of blurry lines.  It isn't clear, even by the film's end, whether Marek is even gay, or whether he's simply looking for a way out of the gang to seek a better life.  Daniel becomes lover, provider, protector, even father in a relationship that is truly dynamic, and becomes the core of the film, galvanizing each scene, motivating the characters, and probing fascinating thematic grey areas.

Daniel's transformation from john to father figure is certainly unsettling, but it reveals the character's tenderness, and his ability to adapt (much as Marek and his friends have had to as immigrants).  As more of Marek's past comes into relief, Daniel realizes how toxic his initial advance was, adding insult to injury in a tragic story.  So he changes, putting Marek's needs before his own desires, taking charge of the relationship's trajectory, a moment of bold selflessness underlined in the film's closing scene.

The film has a bizarre pace, but it's always in the service of the story.  The opening scene is almost frustratingly low-key until Daniel's first encounter with Marek.  The rest of the film settles into a similar simmer, with Daniel and Marek often vulnerable, but rarely approaching that point where their lives could be ruined.  The danger of opening one's life to another person hangs over every scene; an invitation can always backfire.  Only in the climactic hotel scene does Eastern Boys become urgent; it's a fitting payoff to the intimate intensity that fuels the rest of the film, a large-scale set piece reached through moments of interpersonal struggle and connection.

The strange pacing and uncomfortable transformation in the film's central relationship make Eastern Boys something of a tough film to swallow.  But if one can get on that crucial wavelength, Campillo's film casts a curious spell, as alluring and dangerous as that which a lover might exude.