After surviving a potentially fatal accident, a young boxer succumbs to an inexplicable pain that threatens his career.
Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Valéry Carnoy
Starring: Samuel Kircher, Fayçal Anaflous, Jef Jacobs, Anna Heckel
I'm no expert on the matter but it seems to me that, these days, ostensibly heterosexual men are in actuality as gay as all get out. To wit, the so-called manosphere, an apparent barometer of straight masculinity, has fervently veered into the sort of precious male grooming which even the mega conflicted Patrick Bateman would have balked at. For most of us, an expensive moisturiser suffices (I recommend The Ordinary face serum - works miracles), but these lads are zygopushing, hitting their faces with a hammer, overdosing on crystal meth... And here's the thing, it's all for the benefit of other fellas; comparing, admiring, face mogging: the girls don't get a look in. It's become a cliché to remark that there's never been anyone who struggled with the closet door as much as Andrew Tate (remember him? Cringe at how much cultural space the twat was afforded), but it serves the point (I mean when was the last time you saw one of these supposed alpha-males doing something proper manly, like fix a boiler or change the engine oil?). A lot of straight men don't even seem interested in women, really, with their fixation on "the lads," watching other blokes running around a field, their complete dismissal of typically female enthusiasms (like decent music for one thing). My armchair theory is that misogyny is a direct result of heteronormative culture's expectations that men should pair up with the opposite gender despite what their spirit and soul otherwise demands, with all resultant self-loathing projected on to the nearest target.
Wild Foxes, the wonderful coming-of-age drama from writer/director Valéry Carnoy, delicately investigates this evergreen phenomenon with beating heart. Set within a boarding school's compressive social context, the film's tone is set by the opening scene of a student boxing match. Is there any other way for a man to officially get this close to another male body, to feel the heat of flesh, the tight brawn, the physical force without actually fucking him (not to harp on, but it's no wonder all of these male influencers have "suddenly" taken up boxing)? The two lads lamp, lope and lunge into each other as their boyish classmates jeer and cheer as if this is the most important thing in the entire world. When victor Camille (Samuel Kircher - a mini Erling Haaland) and his pals retire to the home dressing room we are privy to the sort of physical celebration which can only be sanctioned within such furtive, liminal male spaces. The boys massage oiled skin and leap on to each other, high on their own testosterone and eagerly hugging in supposed celebration. Filmed to mimic the intimate portrait orientation of mobile phone footage, the sequence is a moment of uncharacteristic but necessary unsubtlety as Wild Foxes explicitly sets out its stall.
Camille (note the androgynous name) is a promising pugilist in the sort of elite boarding school which often seems to come up in French films (I suppose the microcosmic applications are irresistible for the vanguards of semiology). He's part of a tightknit crew, with Matteo (Fayçal Anaflous) as his best boy. It's all going well, with Camille's coach and headteacher positioning the talented lad for international success, until one afternoon during one of Camille and Matteo's secret strolls in the surrounding countryside, the former slips from a high precipice during a game of hide and seek (the moment is filmed with a matter-of-fact inevitability that is stomach flippingly plausible). Matteo locates his friend and carries him back to school: Camille's arm is shattered, but are his hopes of being a champion similarly wrecked?
They say boxing is as much a psychological sport as it is physical, and as Camille recovers Wild Foxes expounds upon this aphorism. We may expect a ruins to riches redemption arc, but Carnoy could never be so base. It's not a bodily malady that Camille turns out to suffer from but something far more physical. He loses interest in the adolescent pursuits of his friends who increasingly take on the personae of jostling idiots, and also pressingly tunes out of the sweet science too. The former great white hope becomes a great white mope as he undergoes extreme self-loathing, manifesting in frustrated acts of self-harm. It's as if the compound fracture has also dislocated his constructed identity: as if he can't be fucked with this performative business of being a teen boy any longer. The film has certainly established Camille as caring and sensitive, as Matteo and him stealing meat from the kitchen to feed wild foxes, and with a beautifully understated moment where Camille, talking on a phone, gently plays with a beetle scaling his arm.
A thematic watershed occurs when a murdered fox is found on the yard, dumped overnight. Plot wise, the poor thing was killed by "neighbours" who are angry that the vixens and co are running roughshod, the proposition being that Camille's clandestine feeding has exacerbated the situation. Thematically, however, the clear implication is that this institution is a social context which demands strict conformity, not "wildness." The forests take on threshold resonance, becoming a way to escape the pressures of the school and its ridiculous accords. It is here that Camille spots Yas (Anna Heckel, a star in the making please), practising her trumpet (the film juxtaposing specific, taxingly competitive activities). Is this an opportunity for love, to assert masculinity, or simply, most importantly, for true friendship? Camille, confused and wounded, has no idea but goes for it anyway.
Matteo and co go absolutely mental with Camille, completely nonplussed at how easily Camille seems to have outgrown them and their exhausting routines (a destabilising dynamic: like a burst bubble). Meanwhile, Camille pursues his relationship with Yas, a connection deeply ambiguous for the two of them. Like a GBF, he helps her wear make up for the first time (side note, there is no more poignant hallmark of gender differentiation than make up: boys can never wear it, girls are expected to), like a hopeful lover Camille snuggles tight to her in bed after the lads have wrecked his room in a fit of hostile tribal confusion (the non-sex scene is a contender for the most tender and heart-breaking moment you'll see all year). Don't worry, Yas isn't like the girls in Fast and Furious – accessories to the mass gayness afoot - but is instead a part of deeply complex friendship which Wild Foxes uses to explore shifting social dynamics.
So invested I was in Yas and Camille that, about an hour in with Wild Foxes, I had a mini pang of regret that soon, within the next half hour or so, the film would be over and so too would my time spent with these intriguingly drawn and fascinating characters. And when the credits did roll, the narrative ends on a moment of compromise which, while ultimately unsatisfying, is perhaps true to how these things often work out in the real world which is far away from deep fairy-tale fox forests. That is to say, with acceptance and perhaps a little repression. While Camille, Yas and Matteo may never actualise their true selves it is to our gain, however, as Wild Foxes is a low-key classic of queer cinema.
Wild Foxes is in UK/ROI cinemas from May 1st.
