Fögi Is a Bastard (1998)

Must See Movie...

An absolute waste of money

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Mandragora meets Switzerland. Amazing detail. Beautifully shot. Extremely complex sequences. Beautiful dialogues. Mesemrising moments. Truthful, yet incredibly depressing. That's what I'd add in a nutshell if you want to dig into this film's nightmares.Beni's nightmare, that's it. We, who have seen this film, agree that it's a difficult and painful way to go to the end. Despite its very Swiss environment, it's a film that would fit any time slot since the sixties. Strong and bitter. Sweet and hopeless. Definitely not an American film. Good actors, good script and a good director... all these factors make of F... one of those rare modern films that have it all.Clearly, French input is all over this movie, and that's always a plus.The music is another point to look for. Original music not to be found anywhere; a couple of Lou Reed's good songs and a heartbreaking end with Patti Smith's "Wings". Forget about the gay themed thing, this is a film to make you think, seriously!I doubt anyone would endure just walking out as the credits roll.

Be warned--I cannot discuss this film without SPOILERS--so, consider this your friendly:****SPOILER ALERT****I picked up the DVD of this film--translated "Fogi is a Bastard"--having never heard of it and knowing nothing about it short of the cover plot description. This is usually a recipe for disaster and confirms my late Grandmother's favorite saying--"A fool and his money soon parted." And after reading some of the previous user comments you would thing that would be the case. But I think some of these people are wrong, wrong, wrong about this one. "Fogi" is one of the most stunning, mesmerizing and sexy, yet profoundly disturbing films I have ever seen about all-encompassing, unrequited love. The fact its main character is a homosexual 16-year-old boy only adds to the power of the picture.Played by the youthful and disarmingly attractive Vincent Branchet, Beni is a young schoolboy who falls under the spell of Fogi (Frederic Andrau), the lead singer of a local Swiss rock band. After he writes Fogi a love/fan letter, Fogi invites Beni to his apartment where they begin a puppy love affair with terrific, mutually satisfying sex. For Fogi, of course, it's just a casual, fun fling with a groupie he knows will do anything for him. For Beni, it's the real thing, a love so strong with sex so powerful you can literally feel the love and devotion for this guy taking over this young boy's soul to the point that nothing else in life matters beyond being with Fogi, whether it's in bed or tending to his every need. Fogi returns the favor by getting the poor kid hooked on drugs, leaving him alone for days on end and abusing him emotionally and mentally. Things begin to spiral out of control in this dangerous relationship when the band's gigs dry up and Fogi leaves town to make money by selling drugs, leaving Beni to mope around the apartment like an abandoned housepet. When Fogi finally returns, Beni is ecstatic--think of a military wife welcoming her husband home from war--but something is terribly wrong with Fogi, who has become hopelessly addicted to heroin and becomes increasingly abusive and cruel to his young lover in an attempt to get him to leave--which Beni refuses to do. Fogi then begins to literally treat Beni like a dog--having him crawl around the apartment naked, wear a dog collar, eat like a dog, sleep curled up on the floor like a dog, being washed like a dog. When this doesn't get rid of the kid, Fogi figures he might as well make money off of him and starts pimping him out to old gay men in the neighborhood, which Beni gladly does since, after all, he's in love.All of this, of course, leads to an appropriately tragic ending for Fogi, but on a hopeful note for Beni. The real power of this film lies in the last bit of dialog, where Beni actually believes he didn't love this jerk enough to save him from the inevitable and literally apologizes for not doing enough to save him! "Fogi is a Bastard" is one of the most truthful and appropriate titles to a film I have ever seen. And I can't say enough about the actors, especially Vincent Branchet who is so brave an actor he puts his young American counterparts to shame. This is a role in which he could easily look foolish yet he pulls it off--you understand what he does because he shows the depth of his irrational love. And Frederic Andrau also shines as Fogi--who really is a bastard. Kudos to director Marcel Gisler, who films all this in an ultrarealistic manner and manages to make a nearly one-set film unclaustrophobic. Ironically, I watched this film the day after watching "Attack of the Clones," which was one of the most joyless and mindless mishmashes I have ever seen. There may not be much joy in "Fogi," but at least it will make you think, and may scare a few teens into thinking twice about getting involved in inappropriate relationships with adults. **** (out of *****)

From the other comments {as of 2001 when I first wrote about this film here} you might think "Fogi is a Bastard" is a total loser film; but I think those others missed the boat on this one. It remains the #1 film I'd like to own on video, one that actually breaks new ground in examining a hot, if dysfunctional, gay love affair. For me, it was the best film at OUTFEST 1999; and even though as a film it probably is not a masterpiece, as a gay film it is so amazing and mind blowing that it has replaced "Law of Desire" (by Almodòvar), as my all-time favorite gay film. Vincent Branchet plays Beni, a schoolboy in 1974 Switzerland, who develops a crush on Fogi the notoriously gay lead singer/guitarist of a local punk band, "The Minks". They form a relationship which starts out as innocent puppy dog attraction with wonderful sex, and which devolves to heavy sado-masochism as Fogi descends into heroin addiction and starts hiring out Beni as a call-boy and treating the willing and cooperative Beni as his dog (too bad the more apropos title, "My Life as a Dog" was already taken). It sounds unpromising, I know. Yet the film is such an unsparingly realistic portrayal; the actors so outstanding (Branchet is both the most attractive young actor and one of the best actors period that I've seen in several years; and Frederic Andrau, who plays Fogi is no slouch, himself) that it all works. The film is beautifully shot in a realistic, gritty style with a very mobile camera which defies description (a scene where the characters have dropped LSD and the whirling camera is used as a metaphor for their internal state is simply stunning.) It is exciting and innovative film making, and the director Marcel Gisler is one to watch for. This is a film I would go back to see over and over if it were ever to get a release here.I finally got to see this film again on DVD in March, 2012; and the film has lost none of its power to shock and amaze. Twelve years have passed since I saw it, and still no other filmmaker has managed to make a gay themed dramatic film which so ardently and truthfully managed to capture the unvarnished essence of the sex, drugs and Gothic Rock gay culture of the '70s. This film might have been set in Switzerland; but it could have been set anywhere that gay people congregated in that pre-AIDS, post-Stones era. This film remains a milestone of the gay cinema and deserves its place in the canon.

From the storyline, this movie could be good, but it isn't. Fögi is pretty sexy, but Beni is such a sissy that you have in mind that the director had the sick idea to tweak a man-man relationship into a man-woman relationship. This is also obvious in the short sex scenes, where always Beni is lying on his belly and Fögi is on top of him, or in some other scenes where Beni acts like a housewife. Of course, there is the usual film drug-addicts stuff: Velvet Underground music, Andy Wharhol posters etc. The positive thing about this movie is that it's just a love drama with two men and not one of those films where this is made into something special, without any stereotype stuff like drag queens, strange bars etc.