Jun Li’s alluring third feature, Queerpanorama (眾生相), received its world premiere at the 75th Berlinale—aptly enough in the festival’s Panorama section—where it was in competition for the 39th Teddy Award. Strikingly shot in black and white, it is a bold and inventive meditation on self-discovery that really got under my skin.
The protagonist, listed in the credits simply as “I”—Li told The Queer Review that the film is “very much autobiographical”—is played by Jayden Cheung making his impressive acting feature film debut. He is a drifting twenty-something gay man wrestling with his purpose in life and the meaning of human existence. He’s also very horny. With its unchronological, apparently free-flowing, but carefully structured circular narrative, the film follows the man on a series of sexual hookups, each with a distinct flavour.
Some, like the brief encounter with a delivery guy who doesn’t even remove his motorcycle crash helmet as he penetrates him in a public restroom, are less about talk and more about action, proximity, or losing himself in sex. Whereas one meeting, with a German architect turned set designer (Sebastian Mahito Soukup) living in Hong Kong who is still in mourning for his life partner, results in no intercourse at all but nevertheless a meaningful connection is formed between the two men.
He figuratively brings his boyfriend, whom he is in a long-distance open relationship with, into the room with him in every encounter. But he doesn’t necessarily bring all of himself. Perhaps wanting to retain his anonymity or to play with taking on new personas—or a combination of the two—the protagonist assumes the identity of the last man he met with the next guy he hooks up with, introducing himself by their name and describing their occupation as his own.
Just as sex with strangers can often be more adventurous and exploratory than with a longterm partner—the protagonist agrees to wear lingerie for one of his hookups—so can the conversation potentially be more vulnerable, profound or playful. For instance, over a shared postcoital meal, Li’s protagonist casually bares his soul about his nihilistic tendencies and suicidal thoughts to Dan (Arm Anatphikorn), a charismatic Thai rent boy living and working undocumented in Hong Kong, while in turn Dan shares that he was raped by his school teacher.
Li’s astute screenplay with its well-observed dialogue, skillfully takes into account the chat that has already happened on the hookup app pre-meeting and how that impacts the men’s subsequent in-person interactions. As the protagonist connects with each of the men he meets, the theme of freedom—individual, societal, and sexual—reverberates through many of their conversations, taking in Germany before reunification, the civil rights struggle in America, and the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. As a Hong Kong “local”—as he’s frequently referred to—meeting up with men from other countries, the protagonist and his hookups teach each other phrases in their own languages as they find ways to bond.
Having been planned on a hookup app, the primary purpose of each encounter is sex. Aside from one, which was arranged to purchase a second-hand table, but that soon finds its way to sex in any case. Li does not shy away from depicting the sexual aspect of each meeting in a raw, unfiltered way, conveying the uninhibitedness of the characters as their bodies discover and find pleasure in each other.
There are two encounters that we do not see fully play out, with each of those scene cutting to a confronting image of its aftermath. One sees the protagonist curled up in an alleyway in a jockstrap, while another finds him facedown naked on a beach, badly bruised on his back and buttocks. Powerful and unsettling, these moments both leave our own imaginations to fill in the blanks of what might have transpired.
Exquisitely framed by cinematographer Yuk Fai Ho, working to the intimacy-enhancing 4:3 ratio, almost every shot in the film could hang in a photography gallery; ravishing and carefully composed, yet vibrant and alive. The frequent use of long static shots never feels stagey, but gives the scenes room to breathe, an unpredictability and sense of naturalism. That naturalism is enhanced by Li’s choice not to use a score, focusing instead on sound designer Cyrus Tang’s immersive, nicely detailed but not overwrought soundscape.
There is an intoxicating, unhurried flow to Horse Stone’s editing. Notably a pattern is established the first hookup scene, where there is no edit or change of camera angle as things shift from sex, with a post-grad science student and DJ (Erfan Shekarriz), to talking. The result is a scene that feels more about the overall connection between the two, dissolving the distinction between sex and conversation.
With its screenplay inspired by Li’s own life, some of the characters in the film are played by the actual people who they are based on, with certain scenes even shot in their own living spaces. Li manages to unify the performances, limiting any distinction between the non-professional actors and those who are trained like Cheung, whom the filmmaker first worked with on his 2018 short My World.
Cheung is magnetic, fearlessly inhabiting the central role. In another actor’s hands this might have been a brooding, one-note character but Cheung brings light, shade and levity to him, and there is strength in how subtle and understated he is. This is showcased in one stripped down, wordless scene where we see the thoughts flicker on his harrowed face and the horror in his eyes as he recalls the trauma of the night before. We also see him relish his time alone at home, singing a song that was sung to him by one of his hookups, and enjoying the new dildo he has purchased, both for its intended purpose and as a makeshift microphone to sing passionately into.
Queerpanorama is a metaphorical journey of a young man’s search for himself—and with all but one encounter taking place outside of his own apartment—we also see him literally travel around the city on a sexual odyssey from hookup to hookup. These travel interludes give us a sene of the protagonist’s Hong Kong, with the beauty of city’s architecture captured with the same admiring queer lens as the beauty of the male form. The travel sequences also give us a chance to spend time with the character alone in his own thoughts. At one point as he travels by train we see him cry as he is absorbed in Hua Hsu’s Stay True, a novel that contemplates some of the same questions that he is grappling with about identity.
Refreshingly, the protagonist’s angst is both introspective and existential, but not related to being queer. If we are to take him at his word, he came out at 15 to accepting parents, and sex with men along with watching movies are his two favourite pastimes. These vignettes might mostly be one-off meetings, but that does not mean that they are not significant in their own way for both parties.
As hope begins to chip away at the protagonist’s despair, a health notice on a pack of cigarettes warning that smoking slowly kills, reads to him as an invitation, to quieten his suicidal thoughts, live at least a little longer, and perhaps focus on the pleasure of it. This happens during the last encounter we are shown, one that has a different vibe and look to the others, with an American musical theatre actor (a vibrant and engaging Zenni Corbin), with whom it appears the protagonist can finally truly be himself.
Sexy, provocative and absorbing, with its stylish visuals and distinctive voice, Queerpanorama feels like a film that will be worth revisiting decades from now and that will still have something to say.
By James Kleinmann
Queerpanorama world premiered at the 75th Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, and was in competition for the 39th Teddy Award. Read our exclusive interview with Queerpanorama filmmaker Jun Li and star Jayden Cheung.
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