The straight audience’s guide to watching ‘Pillion’
Collage by Riley LeBlanc, Photographer
With only one kiss between the leads throughout the entire runtime of “Pillion,” some might hesitate to label it as a romance.
“Pillion” has romantic elements. There’s plenty of yearning, plenty of sex and what could be described as a “meet-cute” on Christmas Eve. But the only truly romantic moments occur in the duration of one sequence, immediately followed by the gut-wrenching disappearance of a long-anticipated surrender to the chase. So if it’s not romantic, what is the rest of the movie?
The movie details a symbiotic submissive-dominant relationship between the timid Colin (Harry Melling) and emotionally distant biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård). Colin struggles to balance personal boundaries and needs with the atypical nature of the relationship, as well as expectations thrust upon his relationship by his parents.
The rest of the movie is a thorough examination of the modern gay dating scene, blown up to grandiose proportions. Director Harry Lighton’s reach for visual shock value is rooted in a very real place that likely resonates with many gay men. With personal issues that are so difficult for the average individual to articulate, it’s crucial to make the implicit more explicit in their portrayal.
This was done by crafting an allegory of dominance and submission to illustrate the power at play within the “typical” gay relationship. Dominance is held by the lover who is most afraid of love. Submission is worn by the one who has the most to give. This usually neatly lines up with one lover having more experience held over the head of the other. The case was no different in “Pillion,” with the dominant Ray wielding sexual power over the inexperienced Colin.
Even though there’s plenty of on-screen sex, none of it is necessarily sexy. The film deliberately grants us enough detachment from Colin’s passion to understand that he is inexperienced. Many of the sexual acts he performs are foreign to him, and the film purposely places us at a better vantage point with which to observe his reality.
What “Pillion” portrays is someone chasing love and someone running from it. It’s a simple enough concept, but the display of this relationship is complicated by its queer nature. The film illustrates Colin’s desperation in chasing Ray well; a desperation that might leave straight audiences confused.
But the key element to understanding Colin’s behavior comes within the first scene. Nearly all of Colin’s potential romantic interests can be summed up by the “Alexa, Free Britney” holographic shirt worn by an awkward date of his. As a gay man, Colin’s dating pool is slimmer than the straight people around him, limited to blind dates his mom picks out. It’s this desperation that causes him to cling to Ray’s avoidant attention with such reckless abandon, allowing him to discard his own boundaries.
Although Colin and Ray’s relationship is dysfunctional, it’s not a critique of BDSM relationships in general. In fact, “Pillion” goes to great lengths to illustrate healthier examples of working relationships. The most stark example is the submissive who sets boundaries with his dominant biker partner, enjoying the intimacy of kissing. In fact, the biker gang is full of partners with functioning relationships.
This portrays the BDSM community as a safe space for gay individuals to explore their sexuality and escape the otherness they feel in other aspects of their lives. This community is crucial for Colin’s journey towards understanding his own identity and setting boundaries for future relationships.
While gay men might see themselves allegorically reflected in either the avoidant or the anxiously attached or understand the community of the biker gang, straight people in the audience might have trouble understanding what to make of the movie at all. Maybe the most helpful tools are the characters of Colin’s parents, situated conveniently within the plot as an audience surrogate for people trying just as hard as the elderly couple to make sense of Colin’s relationship.
What Colin and Ray have is not romance, but a sort of transactional relationship. It might not be what Colin needs, but for a good portion of the movie, it’s what he chooses for himself. Just as Colin’s mom chewed up Ray in the dinner scene, some might feel inclined to cast judgement on the couple for their untraditional relationship. Ray for being the dominant perpetrator, Colin for being the submissive accomplice.
When Ray calls Colin’s mom “backwards” for her judgement, he isn’t calling her homophobic in the traditional sense, but rather for lacking understanding of their relationship’s inherent queerness. And it’s impossible to judge queer problems through a straight lens, because there’s more to gay relationships than just two men.
And this was “Pillion’s” strength. In contrast to much popular queer media today, it wasn’t created, or even refined, for the pleasure or comfort of straight audiences. It portrays an explicitly gay subculture and does not shy away from its deviance, but rather expands on its visual elements to further construct the theme.
Between the lack of sex appeal and unapologetic writing, “Pillion” successfully tackles the struggle of the queer experience outside of the queer identity itself.
