Being at Home with Claude (1992) User Reviews

"Well..I used to love him, but I had to kill him.

[yaaah_69 · 8/10 · 1 April 2002]

Very dark side of of the gay genre, but certainly not unbelievable. I'm sure this is not the first film about killing the one you love... and It will not be the last. Mr. GoodBar comes to mind, but he was just a nut out to get his jollies at the right moment.

As Yves tells the inspector,'you cannot explain it in words, it doesn't work, the feelings cannot be described as one thinks them'.

We do not get to have a deeper evaluation of Claudes psyche. So we have to look at the words Yves is trying to tell us. " It was so beautiful, (the sex) that we brought it to the end at least 13 times and we both knew it could not be topped... you see Claude looking into Yves eyes with a bittersweet look, as Yves picks up the knife which has fallen next to Claudes head, Claude shifts his eyes to the knife and you get a fleeting glimmer of understanding in Claudes eyes but he does not try and defend him self, but as Yves puts it 'he kept holding on to me'.

You walk away from this movie,which was played-out in a judge's chamber-thinking you didn't like it, but later it grabs you and makes you think!

(It was a play before being a movie) and has that feeling. It must have been dynamic on stage.

Halfway decent gay movies are hard to find, and I cannot imagine what Hollywood would have done with this flick, but, if you can take the heavy darkness of this movie it will leave you thinking... about the obsessions of love and how it can deform your psyche.

Actually the only thing that really bothered me about this movie, was the title.

Jaques Godin gives another fine performance!

[isaak-1 · 15 September 1999]

I rented this film to see Jaques Godin, who was so great in "Salut Victor." This is a very different film and role. Edgy and aggressive, this dark psychological drama centers around the confession by a street hustler of the brutal and puzzling murder of his lover. Godin's performance is aggressive, rapid fire and dynamic. It's often apparent when a film is an adaptation of a play and it so it is with this one. While black and white flashbacks effectively illustrate the details of the confession, the focus is on the dialogue and writing. For American viewers the images are just different enough to be intriguing.

The crimes of love.

[OrbitalG · 10/10 · 25 October 1999]

I could not forget that scene where the hustler decides to free the soul of the one he loves. After seeing this film I now have a much better understanding of how the love and sexual desires of two men, for each other, can be as harsh and beautiful as that of a hetro relationship. It's a film not to be missed.

So beautiful and so frightening

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 19 December 2012]

This Canadian film in Montreal, in the local lingua, is luckily subtitled otherwise no one could understand it except the small minority of people who can speak the local French-like dialect. And that would be a shame because it is a great film.

A young man, Yves, is confronted to a police inspector who is trying to understand the crime for which this young man summoned the police, accusing himself of a murder. He summoned the police in the chambers of a judge, hence using keys he had and should not have, and after informing the local press of the situation. When we know Yves is a hustler the judge's chambers' keys in his possession become understandable though disturbing if it becomes public. The presence of the press outside makes the whole thing appear as an attempt to blackmail a judge.

But we know about the murder because we saw it in black and white at the beginning. The problem, for us as much as for the police inspector, is to understand why it happened, and only the murderer can tell us.

The situation yet is disquieting. Claude, the lover who hired the hustler, is a student at the university, is supposed to be heterosexual, has a girlfriend in Quebec where he is from, etc. Yet it is obvious the crime is a sex crime and it took place while a sex act was being performed and this sex act was absolutely consensual. So why did the hustler kill the customer? Yves finally cracks up or breaks down and starts telling his story. And that's when it becomes very disturbing.

Yves fell in love with Claude who had fallen in love before him. How can a hustler be in love with his customer? How can a customer be in love with a hustler? The relation becomes habitual. It lasts and that is the troublesome element. It becomes a real love affair. A normal hustler would take the money and do his job but will not fall in love. If he did he would at once move on and drop the adventure that would become a caper. Too dangerous. Yves did not and even experienced extreme happiness when he and Claude experienced extreme ecstasy, total communication in pleasure, full sharing of physical, mental and emotional orgasm.

And that's the rub.

Yves loves Claude so much and Claude loves Yves so much that Yves realizes there will be a difficult moment when Claude will have to face the fact that he is gay in a society and an environment that is not necessarily tolerant about it, and for Yves the love and pleasure he experiences with Claude would become bitter and hateful when the real situation is found out and made public for both of them. Yves wants Claude to live forever in his pleasure and he wants to face his fate, and his end if necessary, with Claude in him, pregnant with Claude and his love in a way.

That's why in the trance of his pleasure and orgasm shared with the pleasure and orgasm of Claude, he kills Claude for him to fully remain forever in this state and for himself to inherit this living pleasure inside his own self.

Yves is motivated by the "peur de l'autre bord de la médaille", the other side of the coin Claude will have to face one day. He wants Claude to die in his pleasure, to die of pleasure, not seeing the perversion that Claude does not DIE, but IS KILLED, hence not OF pleasure but WITHIN pleasure. And yet that is love. To love someone to the point of offering that one to die of pleasure and live in me till my real death comes.

And there again there is something perverted. The offering to pleasure would be complete if Yves offered himself to his own pleasure containing the pleasure of Claude now dead. Instead of killing himself on top of Claude he has just killed, he runs away and around for two days and finally calls the police and sets up a strange confession cession.

But it is such a beautiful film about love when it is turned into a merchandize and when life turns it back into a passion. Love cannot be both an emotion and a commodity. As an emotion and a passion it is beautiful. As a commodity it would be vain, aimless and frustrating. That latter choice can only be for a short while and then it has to be terminated or it will turn sour, bitter, hateful, dangerous.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Brilliant performance by Roy

[safaras · 10/10 · 22 August 2001]

Roy holds the centre stage, and the audience in his hand, for over 30 mins for his performance as Yves in this production, the emotions are portrayed sensitively and with depth. Watch it, you won't be disappointed and it will leave you speechless.

I am dissapointed

[melvinrovelo · 5/10 · 20 May 2020]

I love the fact that this is not your regular hollywood movie, and I love movies based on theater plays.

This one, I hate it. Because It could be a great piece of art. But the actor just couldn't carry all the work, passion, and feelings of his character. Most of his perfomance feels just so amateur-ish.

I mean this type of films aren't made to let you walk out feeling good or happy, it is suppossed to make you think and talk about what you just saw. But this one only makes you think in all the marks who missed.

excellent character study

[Bram-5 · 1 April 1999]

Being the story of why he killed his friend and lover, this film presents a possible altruistic reason for what appears to be a cold-blooded murder. Believe it or not, like it or not, some people want to die and we don't know about Claude, but his lover grants the unvoiced desire. The cop to whom he tells his story understands. Very similar to 'Prick Up Your Ears' though very different at the same time. If you're sick of Hollywood's predictable view, see this Canadian movie.