2022 Entry #022 02-01-22 “Parallel Sons” is an award winning 1995 gay-themed drama film, written and directed by John G. Young (“The Reception”, “Rivers Wash Over Me”, “bwoy”) whose work often deals with the intersections of race and sexuality. Starring Gabriel Mann (“Stonewall”, “I Shot Andy Warhol”, “High Art”, “Revenge”) and Laurence Mason. The film premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival.
This film had been out for at least 10 years by the time I stumbled across it. I purchased it, watched it once and added it to my collection. I remembered enjoying it (though I got some of the details wrong) and I think I actually enjoyed it even more the second time around.
The film centers on Mann’s white small town character, a young man with artistic talent and a fascination with Black pop culture named Seth. Seth eventually crosses paths with a young Black man during a would-be robbery gone wrong due to the other man’s injuries, who Seth chooses to help, rather than turn in. An interesting friendship is formed between Seth and the man whose name is later revealed to be Knowledge and the film continues to unfold from there.
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
Seth tells the story of a child who went missing when Seth was younger and how everyone searched for the child but never found him and how this event revealed that a seemingly innocent, idyllic & beautiful setting was actually something far more sinister that could actually devour you. After Seth’s father caught him having sex with his school friends Marty & Kyle, his father told him that this was bad and if he ever did this again he would end up like the boy who disappeared. On screen he dies in the mountains just minutes after he becomes lovers with Knowledge.
If I gave any deeper thought to the film before, I have no memory of it, but examining it now there seem to be several parallel sons referenced by the title. The first being Knowledge and Seth, who both understand what it is to be looked down on for being gay. There’s also Seth and Malik (Johnathan Charles) who are both Knowledge’s boys (Seth is his lover and Malik is his son); both die by gun violence in which Knowledge is not the shooter. There’s also Seth and Marty & the unseen Kyle. Kyle is implied to have been the most openly gay of the three and we learn that he hung himself with his Superman bedsheets. Marty has gone on to be a racist asshole who seeks a career in law enforcement. While Seth has become a celibate young man obsessed with Black culture. It makes me wonder if Kyle was Black? Or maybe, Seth and Marty just chose to be opposites of one another to distance themselves? Or Marty, who seems the more closeted of the two, has just embraced small mindedness while Seth, whose homosexuality seems closer to the surface, and whose artistic nature have allowed him to be more openminded? I don’t know. But I enjoy the film.