Director-producer-editor-colorist-composer Sterling Hampton IV’s Merman is a poignant, beautifully layered portrait of André Chambers, a 58-year-old Black queer man living in Palm Springs, where the 11-minute short film was shot on location, featuring some stunning desert scapes. In its specificity about André’s life, the Holly Shorts Social Impact Award-winning film is a powerful reminder of how multifaceted we all are as humans. It is a theme that is ingrained in Merman’s strikingly varied visual style, which incorporates digitally shot live-action sequences, in colour and black and white, as well as human-created 2D and 3D animation, and AI animation. This film had me at its stylishly retro, vibrant yellow and red opening titles card.
The opening shots of a muscular André flexing and posing in a black and pink stripped wrestling suit are a little bleached out, and with the accompanying slightly discordant score have the feel of a decaying VHS tape that has just been discovered, perhaps a Physique Pictorial-inspired softcore production. There is a gracefulness in those shots that is contrasted in the next sequence of him pumping iron in a leather harness and jockstrap, as the score shifts to something harsher, techo-infused, and more intense and the image goes from crisp digital to grainy black and white. André is a tattooed, blue-haired, white-bearded confidently sexy muscle daddy. He is also a dedicated emergency room nurse of twenty years who impacts people’s lives daily; a loving husband; and a leather enthusiast.
With kind, deeply expressive eyes, André makes for an engaging, unguarded, and self-reflective subject, as he shares his fifty-year journey to self-acceptance. One formative childhood memory, which echoes a devastating scene in Ava DuVernay’s Origin set decades before, is of him being told that he could not swim in his Southern California neighbour’s swimming pool because of his skin colour. It was far from the only racism that he encountered in his youth, growing up as the only Black family in the area in the 80s. As the film’s title suggests though, it is an experience that André defiantly overcame. Having always had an affinity with water, he describes the DC character Aquaman as “an extension” of who he is. Cinematographer Adam Shattuck captures some gorgeous, rather lyrical underwater footage of him in his element, wearing an Aquaman wetsuit (sporting an Aquaman tattoo on his right forearm). As he talks about how calm the water makes him, the pale blue visuals calm us too.
André wistfully recalls his first crush as a kid, before he even knew what being gay was; a tall, hairy friend of his mother’s who had posed for Playgirl. He reflects upon that early awakening, to living as a closeted young man, before finally finding a supportive, non-judgmental “family” in the leather community which helped him learn to love himself. Skillfully crafted with intention and care, this is a deeply moving and uplifting film about having the bravery to forge our own way in the world and the healing that comes with self-acceptance.
By James Kleinmann
Sterling Hampton IV’s Merman played in Short Film Program 2 at the 40th Sundance Film Festival.
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