Eastern Boys

By: Amos Lassen

Daniel (Olivier Rabourdin) solicits a young Eastern European man, Marek (Kirill Emelyanov), for sex at the Parisian train station, negotiating a price and arranging to meet at Daniel's place later that week. However when the time comes it's not Marek who turns up, but all his 'friends', led by their intimidating boss (Daniel Vorobyov), who proceed to party in the apartment and then completely clear it out, threatening that they will accuse Daniel of being a if he does anything.

Some time later Marek appears and we learn that his real name is Rouslan . He seems to feel badly about what his friends did and now he is ready to perform as long as he is paid.? returns, seemingly feeling bad about what happened before, and this time he really is ready to be paid for sex. What began as a hooker/john relationship begins to become something deeper even with their age differences and Rouslan's undocumented status. Yet lurking in the background is the threat of the controlling boss and the young men he has under his control.

It's an excellent film that pulls us in early and keeps us hooked. What we see is more than a relationship between an older man and a younger one because there is always a sense of threat. The film refuses to give easy answers to what is going on. Nothing is spelled out, instead as viewers, we are to piece things together and consider the different pressures that are going on here.


There are underlying themes here-how young men are dealt with, undocumented and anti-immigration, the ineffectiveness of the European Union. We see how many undocumented immigrants are pushed to the edges of society and that this leaves them open to be manipulated and controlled by others. They have few options to make a success of their lives. Because they are undocumented, they are almost totally vulnerable.


There is also a sense that this is a thriller movie as well as a romance. Our two main characters, Marek and Daniel seem at first to be a poor fit for a relationship yet they find something in one another that is both worthwhile and this is what makes us understand why they stay together.

Director/writer Robin Campillo gives us a fascinating film where all sorts of ideas and possibilities come into play and we watch as tension and romance come together along with issues of class, nationality, age, loneliness, sexuality and power are brought into play, all bumping up against one another. We see at the very beginning how a rich, successful, older man's life can by brought to its knees in 30 seconds by a knock on the door from a 14-year-old boy.