Acts of Love: finding meaning after the fact

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

2 May 2021 - photos courtesy of Isidore Bethel

Acts of Love is that rare film that is more interesting to think about after than it is to watch. Perhaps that is because of the process involved in making the film. Co-director (and the "co" prefix is important) Isidore Bethel spends a lot of the film trying to figure out what he is doing. And why. He claims he is a filmmaker so he makes films. He is "making something and figuring out what it is later" and "finding meaning after the fact." He does find lots of fascinating moments and ideas, but Acts of Love is far from a coherent totality. 

The film begins, and is punctuated throughout, with still photographs accompanied by fraught romantic narration chronicling the beginning and ambiguous demise of an intense relationship with an older man. Bethel then finds himself at loose ends in Chicago and decides to create Acts of Love documenting his search for a new relationship, or at least some hot sex. He chats with 900 men on various apps, interviews 12 and films with "a few." The interviews are intriguing with each interviewee offering awkward and honest reactions while delving into a variety of perspectives on the gay dating experience, and just how sexual and romantic attraction works. Bethel then goes on dates, or has sexual encounters, with some of the men. He then creates scripts which we see the men struggle to rehearse. From there on in, it is impossible to tell what is scripted and what is documentation. 

Since the film is a world premiere at the Hot Docs festival, there is an assumption that Acts of Love is a documentary. But as there is at least a cameraperson constantly filming and there is another co-director, Francis Leplay, involved, there is a nagging feeling of staginess. Which works for the quest to discover the reason for the film's existence, but does little for the presentation of the reality of the gay sexual or romantic experience. Bethel's mother, who pops up on speaker phone for amateur psychotherapy sessions with her son, calls him "narcisstic" and warns that "you use people when you make films." She has a point. The denouement where we discover that Acts of Love is essentially an act of reverse revenge porn, almost ties the film together but it is the multitude of seemingly minor moments that are far more interesting.

Bethel allows himself to be exposed, both physically and emotionally, but his self-analysis is less interesting than his nudity. The men he connects with are however very intriguing. Bethel breaks the heart of a lovable lug of a war veteran shortly after comparing scars. A photographer turns the tables in a photography session that becomes a porny act of domination and objectification in response to all the times the photographer has been objectified as a BBC instead of a person. An older man, the only one that Bethel says he found sexually attractive, takes Bethel to the man and his partner's home to discuss monogamy and the weight of the past. A man who discussed the loss of the thrill of cruising in the gay world, takes Bethel to a sex club, The Hole, under a bar named The Jackhammer. All of the men are conscious of being exploited until, as the older man says bluntly, "I was only in it to fuck you again and since that isn't going to happen, my interest has dried up. Good luck."

Gay men talking about their sexual and romantic experiences and aspirations (and where sex and romance intersect and differ) is endlessly fascinating. However the reality TV trope of self-analysis or monologuing about what one is feeling is unfortunate. Once again Bethel should have listened to his mother who says of the film, "It must be of interest to everybody else." Bethel then insists that "It is a comedy,' the only line in Acts of Love that does get a laugh. That said, after watching the film I mulled over the way that gay men use each other, objectify each other, and struggle to love and respect each other. Of how Bethel's seemingly doomed but irresistible attraction to the older man who grips his heart and loins, is a common experience. How romantic and sexual ideals can blind one to what is real and right in front of one. How what we perceive as real is often really a script, a film unspooling in our heads. None of it is simple and all of us are figuring it out as we go along. "Finding meaning after the fact."