Nominated for the César and the Oscars, the short film Two People Exchanging Saliva, by Natalie Musteata and Alexandra Sigh, imagines a world where kissing is punishable by death. Now streaming on Canal+.
In the running for the Césars (February 26) and for the Oscars (March 15), Two People Exchanging Saliva, by Natalie Musteata and Alexandra Sigh, has already won nearly twenty international prizes including the Jury Grand Prize (Live Action Short) at AFI Fest, the Audience Award at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Festival. Well-deserved awards for this little cultural jewel, packed with references where every detail contributes to the creation of a powerful dystopian universe. Another mark of quality is that Isabelle Huppert and Julianne Moore are among its executive producers.
In a cold and morose society where the exchange of saliva is punishable by death, two women, Malaise and Angine (played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Luàna Bajrami), brush past each other, observe, and struggle to resist their attraction. The meeting of these strangers in the middle of the Galeries Lafayette, one a saleswoman, the other a customer, disrupts their daily lives. In this world where slaps received serve as currency, each transaction takes on the look of a BDSM session where each hides as much as possible their arousal. Filmed in black and white, the short film immediately announces its program: to observe how, in an economic and moral system that controls intimacy, desire persists nonetheless.
In this locked-down universe, every potential sign of transgression – the purchase of toothpaste, a touched skin, a lingering look – is immediately discouraged by repression. A curious neighbor, a suspicious colleague, the spectacular arrest of a rule-breaker in the middle of the store… everyone watches. Despite this climate of terror, Malaise and Angine are drawn to one another.
The tension reaches its climax when Angine, a slender, well-born bourgeois, weaves through the store aisles to find her favorite saleswoman. She even pretends to receive a call to get rid of Malaise’s persistent colleague. In this fake call, one can hear her begin with Hello Grief, a reference to Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan’s novel that sparked a scandal upon its 1954 publication. Its main character, Cécile, has sexual relations with her boyfriend before marriage. Françoise Sagan interrogates the morality and immorality of her characters in an ode to freedom.
If the directors excel at showing thwarted desire, they pay particular attention to the setting that helps the audience feel it. From the Galeries Lafayette, temple of consumption crushing, to Angine’s spare and cold apartment, everything tells us of the absence of intimacy, the control of bodies and desires, the austerity of a society that represses tenderness.
During 35 minutes, the viewer is kept on the edge of their seats. Will the two protagonists transgress the rules at the risk of their lives? The threat looms, and the film reminds us that homosexuality is punishable by death in eleven countries.
