Before I Forget (Avant que j'oublie)

Jacques Nolot’s “Before I Forget” begins with an arresting and compelling visual prologue: upon a brilliant, stark white screen a small black dot suddenly appears and slowly begins to enlarge.

Is the black dot an oculus into an infinite star-less future on the other side of all this whiteness- the round opening increasing in size as we approach and the view beyond the portal broadens? Or is it, rather, a small hard-edged dark planet aimed and headed straight toward us, gaining girth as it hurtles smoothly, effortlessly through an utterly empty atmosphere?

The absolute lack of articulation within each extreme- white and black- becomes entirely unnerving as the speed and size suddenly increase out of proportion, until the entire screen is filled with blackness.

The prologue imitates and is a 2-dimensional diagram of the experience of life. The initial uniformly smooth and slow pacing of the increase in size of the black dot is easily comprehended and magically- though logically- creates an assumption that this rate and ratio will naturally continue until darkness prevails and the light is entirely gone- nothing shocking, almost a pre-nostalgic response to the inevitable. The sudden change in tempo alters the point of view, destroying the complacency of presumed understanding, creating an anxiety that reverses the previous perception of outcome: what was inevitable in its time now comes frighteningly too soon. What is also entirely absent from both prologue and film is the notion of transformation- alternate possibility.

The prologue also describes the trajectory of the story “Before I Forget” which follows Pierre, a 60ish HIV+ gay man, his small circle of contemporaries and the young hustlers they ardently seek out and support with repetitive rounds of sexual episodes more reminiscent of Sisyphus’ labors than spontaneous journeys of desire.

The story that unfolds is a captivating amalgam of unrelenting banality and touching humanity, describing a world in which nothing is strong enough to break through or counter the lethargy of status quo. Both the young and old characters are stuck in patterns so predictable their lives come to look more like the orbits of celestial clusters of inorganic matter, each distinctly different, yet carelessly and powerlessly caught in a magnetic pull, circling the Big Cock.

Really, this world is a binary solar system revolving around two opposite stars that each appear in the form of a literary statement. The Dark Star is a long cerebral quote about stupidity and man’s propensity for making wrong choices because of choosing form over content, marvelously conveyed over Pierre’s car-radio as he is about to set off for an afternoon’s saunter through the local porn theater. The Bright Star is a glorious re-found love-letter from the youthful Pierre’s old sugar daddy, Toutounne, crammed with the scrappy and radiant overflow of exacting particulars that leave no doubt about the real-life love and desire still pouring off the page fifteen years after the fact.

Pierre’s circle includes a claustrophobic and vain colleague whose only interest in Pierre is comparing the price of hustlers- his fantasies of vibrancy revolve around forbidden blow-jobs with armed policemen; George, the married lawyer whose slim, occasional chances for sexual tidbits on the side seem always to be thwarted by chance; and Paul, a former convict with a much darker past and more practical tastes. Paul was the heir of his sugar daddy Gaston and Paul, unlike Pierre, achieved the means to live as he wanted. Paul exemplifies in purist form life lived moment to moment solely with the aim of advantage. He stands for the aspect of rampant capitalism under which there is nothing not for sale and someone is always going to benefit. The challenge for economic man is never to lose sight of how the game is played; a winner will always hit the jackpot. Being the winner is not just all that counts, it is all there is.

Money and time are inextricably linked and honored above all else. At one extreme, the aim is automatic prolongation of life, lived or unlived; at the other extreme lies the unrelenting and unforgiving finitude of the pay-per-view “professional hour”- whether with the hustler or the psychologist- always commanding: ”Now/NotNow” and equally unable to conform to life as experience rather than schedule.

When Pierre climbs- with surprising alacrity- over an ivy-covered wall in the deep dark of a moonless night, we imagine that he is out for another round of half-hearted sexual encounters. It is rather a memory of the Bright Star now absent from his world that draws Pierre like a pilgrim into the shadows of the cemetery for a brief visit at Toutounne’s grave.

Perhaps this gives an idea for the film’s title; the cluster of preening and self-regarding, aging narcissists is more like a gaggle of old house pets, exotic spoiled cats, running after each delectably cute mouse, dangling the captured creature but no longer in the game for blood or potency. They have forgotten what it was they were after, what deep inner needs jumpstarted the pattern of desire while being unable to see it through. Pattern and aging have taken the place of encounter. They cannot move on. What unites them all is a narrowness of vision. Will they ever meet life with an openness to widening the spectrum of observation? The opportunity afforded Pierre by Toutounne’s letter may have been his last chance to remember- or be led into an appreciation- that a moment of real meeting has the unique capacity to alter the ultimate trajectory of the Sisyphean boulder’s path. Once the ability to be affected by felt experience disappears, repetition alone remains, along with the entrapment of pointless searches and yearned for degradations.

Pierre is infantile and obvious, with a matter-of-fact and contradictory presence that belies someone who has been loved for nothing more than being himself; he is quick to point out that he will not be so generous with the next generation.


Pierre can always be relied upon to do exactly what he says he won’t, so the film ends with a scene as slow as the prologue of the black dot. Dressed in drag, like an old suburban mall beer hall waitress out for a fancy dinner in the city, complete with a long and merciless raven-black wig and simple shift with lace trim, Pierre goes off to the sex club/porn theater with one of his regular hustlers. At last he turns and enters the theater, slowly swallowed into the pitch black that describes the future, both literally and figuratively, near and far.