‘Passages’: An erotic portrait of the hateful narcissus

In his fascinating exploration of the new Western amorous forms, American director Ira Sachs, a veteran of gay cinema who has managed to weave his own filmography between Europe and the United States, dwells on an archetype as insufferable as it is complex, that of the narcissus; in this case, embodied by a homosexual movie director.

The opening scenes of Passages place its central character, Tomas, in his professional environment: in charge of a film shoot. Played by the German actor Franz Rogowski, he is a director whose punctilious and implacable authority reveals a tortured background. Sachs does not return to that scenario but the preamble — what is said and above all how it is said — gravitates over the rest of the film. The director turns the spotlight on the character’s private life to tackle a stark and accurate erotic portrait of a successful man accustomed to compliments and manipulation. He and his partner, Martin (Ben Whishaw), an editor with a refined air, have maintained a long-standing relationship until a young teacher, Agathe, crosses the director’s path, played by the always spectacular Adèle Exarchopoulus, one of those actresses who effortlessly brings plausibility to a triangle as improbable but at the same time as credible and well-acted as this one.

The result is an adult film loaded with surprising eroticism for today’s cinematic world, earning it the toughest rating for U.S. distribution — the dreaded NC-17 — from the Motion Picture Association right off the bat. The film’s carnality, as spontaneous as its nudity, reveals the bedroom back-and-forth of this triangle and its central figure, embroidered by Rogowski, an actor who has long been a standout in films such Sebastian Meise’s Great Freedom (2021), and In Transit (2018) and Ondina (2020), both by Christian Petzold. He possesses a taut physique perfect for playing a character capable of attracting and repelling in equal measure.

Here the conventional, stable couple with a little house in the country is formed by two men, and it is one of these who is unable to renounce his vanity, that is, to look at himself in the mirror that favors him most, which is that of the young, sexy, and rather lost teacher played by Exarchopoulus. Sachs is an atypical director, a cosmopolitan who runs against the current. His next project is a film about the musician Arthur Russell, a legend of the New York underground scene who collaborated on Sachs’ movie Keep the Lights On (2012). In Passages he highlights the contemporary emotional fabrics with wisdom, allowing his three performers to flow to the beat of a new liquid reality, but one marked by the usual human flaws.

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