‘Pillion’, deceptively promoted as a thuggish and sexy film, is one of those works designed to make people uncomfortable. Harry Lighton, a descendant of the British aristocracy, made his film debut with the award for best screenplay in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, adapting the novel ‘Box Hill’ by Adam Mars Jones.
The film follows Colin (Harry Melling), a withdrawn and self-conscious thirty-something who lives with his parents and sings in a Christmas choir. His world changes completely when he meets Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), the attractive leader of a motorcycle gang who couldn’t be more different from him. Amazed that someone like that would be interested in him sexually, he becomes her submissive without question. Colin thus begins his peculiar romantic-sexual awakening, embarking on an adventure that dismantles his preconceived ideas of love and where he will discover what he wants in his emotional relationships.
The most popular thing about ‘Pillion’ has been its sexual scenes with BDSM and having someone like Skarsgård playing a dominant gay, but despite the daring scenes, which there are, the film never wants to be that camp fantasy that many wanted to see. Lighton uses the codes of romantic comedy, but he takes them, consciously or unconsciously – and here is the problem – to a sad terrain, where there is neither comedy nor provocation and much of pure devastation. The film always tries to maintain a certain festive tone, when what it tells is very hopeless.
There is an attempt at psychological exploration of its protagonist, a character who on paper has a lot of juice: someone for whom humiliation and submission is a kind of personal liberation. But its development and decisions are often so incomprehensible that it is constantly testing the limits of credibility. And yes, there are moments of great tenderness in Colin’s portrayal and in Melling’s heartfelt performance, but some rather annoying cruelty also ends up creeping in, further blurring the already confusing discourse of the film.
‘Pillion’ plays with discomfort, asking the viewer questions about their own taboos, but its final ambiguity is incapable of generating anything other than pure discomfort. And it is not clear that these are the true intentions of the filmmaker, because from the way he portrays his protagonist in the last minutes, it seems that he was giving him an empowerment that is simply incomprehensible. What did you want to say about a relationship of these characteristics? About the power dynamics that are established beyond the sexual? About self-love? About the loss? Lighton seems to ignore all these issues, and what remains is a film, despite its commendable narrative agility, fails to put the focus where it was most needed: on understanding and loving his character.
