Pairing picspam - C.R.A.Z.Y.
Feb. 4th, 2011 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreyPairing Picspam!
C.R.A.Z.Y.: Zac/Raymond
I am unusually up before noon today. Which does mean that I have the time to make this post, but I may also lapse into incoherence at some point. I'm very sorry if that happens.
Anyway. I should say that this is an incest pairing, so if you don't like that kind of thing you probably won't be interested. I was going to say that it was probably my favourite brother/brother incest pairing, but that was mostly because I couldn't think of any others I had, and then I remember the King brothers on Emmerdale and things got complicated. But Zac/Raymond is definitely right up there near the top, at the very least.
C.R.A.Z.Y. is a Canadian film, and a Quebecois film, so it's all in French. It's a family drama about a boy who grows up in the 60s and 70s and is pretty clearly probably gay, and how his family cope or fail to cope with that. It's actually quite a sad film in a lot of ways, a lot of it is about how his dad hates him for being gay, or hates that part of him, and he hates himself because of it. But a lot of it's quite funny too, and a lot of it is pretty beautiful. And it's got this storyline about the boy and one of his brothers running through it, which I quite love.
The main character is Zac, who is the fourth youngest of five brothers. Zac/Raymond is not actually a massive part of the film, it's mostly about Zac and his relationship with his father, and how Zac feels about himself, but it's definitely a big part of the film, and a pretty definite storyline going on besides the bigger part of the action.
We actually meet Zac in the womb just before he's born, and then watch him be born, in 1960, and we see his brothers around at that point as well. But the first time he starts talking about his life or his brothers is when he's about five.
This is baby Zac:
He tells us that his three brothers are morons, but worst of all is Raymond, who is his "sworn enemy".
::heart::
Now if you're me, pretty much the moment any character said they had a brother who was their sworn enemy is about the time you'd start developing a pairing.
Zac says that he can understand his father being proud of his brother Christian, who's really gifted academically, or Antoine, who's really good at sports, but not why he's proud of Raymond, who's kind of just a dick. It soon becomes clear that Zac's dad is quite proud of Raymond because he has a lot of girlfriends. Whereas Zac, who does things like ask for prams for Christmas (which is also his birthday), and who his dad catches dressing up in his mother's dressing gown and earrings, is not looked always looked on quite as fondly. His dad starts being a lot stricter with him, which upsets Zac quite a lot.
He starts acting up and breaks something of his dad's, and claims it was an accident, but then later dreams about confessing in church that it wasn't an accident, but the priest turns out to be Raymond, who says he's going to tell their father.
Zac's relationship with his mother is a lot better, however, partly because she doesn't like how his dad treats him, and partly because she's very religious and she believes that because he was born on Christmas and his baby brother stops crying when Zac holds him, that he's got a healing gift from God. She takes him to see another religious woman who is supposed to have a healing gift, and she teaches Zac prayers to say which can heal people, and Zac's family and friends get into the habit of calling up when they're hurt and asking Zac to think of them.
Which he does:
Raymond and his other brothers aren't terribly impressed with his healing gift:
Later during the same meal, their dad tells them that Zac is going to summer camp, unlike any of his brothers. This is Raymond being thrilled that Zac is going to camp and is upset about it:
Eventually we jump ahead to Zac's fifteenth birthday. Zac is annoyed at Raymond, who only turns up to their grandmother's Christmas Eve party/his birthday party for an hour every year, and then runs off again. When Zac blows out the candles on his cake someone tells him to make a wish, and Raymond says it won't come true because he can't get it up yet.
Zac is not terribly pleased about that.
Raymond also seems to like to torment his brother in other ways:
Later on Zac sees his brother leaving the party about an hour or so later, and is all "ppft".
Now that Zac is a bit more grown up he's developed more of a taste for music, which he's possibly got from his father, who's a big music lover as well. He seems to be a big fan of David Bowie, and at one point paints up his face, and sings along really loudly to 'Space Oddity' in his bedroom. However, eventually his brother Antoine comes in and pushes him over, asks if he's done imitating "that faggot" yet, turns the music off, and reveals that pretty much the entire neighbourhood was watching Zac through his bedroom window, and says he's made the whole family look like a bunch of idiots.
But he doesn't have any problems at school over it because it turns out there are some advantages to having a "crazy brother":
Who's totally willing to help out, for a mere $2.
Not very long after that, I think we get a scene where Zac and his little brother Yvan are watching TV, and then Raymond walks in, changes the channel and sits down. Zac says they were watching that show, and Raymond tells him to "Shut up, fag". Zac is obviously a bit upset about this, but their dad also overhears, and comes in to demand that Raymond apologise to his brother. Raymond looks somewhere between amused and horrified that his dad would actually make him apologise to Zac, or one of his brothers at all, for one of the times he insults them.
Zac slowly gets more and more upset, partly because of his brother, and partly because his dad is getting so worked up about Raymond calling him a 'fag'.
Raymond eventually gets up and tries to run out of the room, but his dad screams at him to apologise to Zac. And then, in what is one of my favourite moments of the film, Raymond apologises, to their dad.
Then he runs off, and pretty soon afterwards his brother Antoine comes in and says he's been in a fight, and their brother Christian asks who it was and makes fun of him for getting in a fight with a 'fag', and Antoine tells him to 'get lost, fag', and their father comes in all furious about his sons constantly calling each other fags. Anyone would think they were a bunch of fairies, he says. But his point about how terrible it was for Raymond to call Zac a fag is clearly slightly undercut.
We later on learn some of Zac's other hobbies, like going into Raymond's room to steal some of his weed.
And spit in his bed.
Then Zac gets into a car accident and ends up resting at home for a bit, and we find out that when his mum and dad have gone to work, his favourite thing to do is go down into Raymond's room and jerk off to gay porn.
Which mysteriously seems to be kept in Raymond's room. Unless it's just porn, that happens to have some pictures of naked men in it. But anyway. One day, Raymond comes home early, and Zac has to hide, and he ends up watching his brother get a blow job.
This ends up being a regular thing, coming down and hiding in his brother's room and watching while he hands out weed to girls and has sex with them. The shutters seem to slide shut whenever things get too heavy, but whether that's just because they can't show anything explicit in a film, or just so they can segue from one girl to the next, or because he's happy to watch foreplay but not actual sex is not clear. And it may just be that he's interested in sex generally, but given that Zac is pretty clearly meant to be gay at this point, exactly who he's watching is not clear. But anyway, this carries on until one day when he gets caught.
And Raymond gives him a black eye.
But whoops. Zac goes and tells everyone at school all about Raymond's exploits, and the school principal ends up hearing about it and calling Zac's parents, and telling Zac's mother about it. Prompting her to go searching through Raymond's room, and eventually find his weed. And then she or she and their dad throw Raymond out of the house.
Zac is sorry and tries to help out:
But Raymond insists that Zac stay away from him:
Zac tries to insist he didn't grass on him, but to no avail. Almost immediately after Raymond leaves, Antoine asks if he can have Raymond's room, at which point Zac is like "No, I want his room!". But no-one gets his room.
Later on, we jump forward to Zac's 20th birthday. Zac has decided that he hates being probably gay and the trouble it causes so much that he'll just get a girlfriend, and they live together and have lots of sex, and he has a job as a DJ, and he's pretty satisfied and his dad is pretty happy with him. Zac and his dad have a singalong at his birthday party.
Raymond is not thrilled about it.
Then their brother Christian announces that he and his girlfriend are getting married, and Raymond's girlfriend Doris is really ecstatic, and jokes that she and Raymond should make it a double wedding. He tells her to sit down because she looks like a damn fool. Zac and everyone else are pretty offended by this. But Zac's the one who actually has it out with him. We learn that there are two taboo subjects in the family: Zac and Raymond, for gayness and drug addiction/prison. And we learn once again that they don't get on.
"Zac: [to Doris} Tell him to go to hell."
"Raymond: Shut up, fag."
"You seem to be sniffing a lot for someone in detox."
"Sucking cock's made you a prick?"
"Your ass must've been raw after prison."
"You'd have enjoyed that, huh?"
The family demands that they stop this, but Zac isn't done. He throws his drink on Raymond:
And Raymond has to be held back from attacking him:
Zac basically comes off the best out of that argument.
An unspecified amount of time later, Zac goes to see his parents, and finds out that Raymond has moved back in with them. Apparently it's just until he gets back on his feet, and their dad is convinced Raymond really wants to sort himself out, he says he's really determined. During the conversation, Raymond comes into the kitchen, and sees that Zac's there, and things are a bit quiet between them, but civil. Zac says he should go not long after that, and their dad asks if he wants a ride, but Raymond says he'll take him.
But it turns out Raymond has an ulterior motive for giving him a ride. Before Zac gets out of the car, Raymond says he wants to ask something, and says he needs money. Zac is like "pfft".
Raymond says their dad is always going on about how his 'little pet' makes more than he does. Zac says if their dad has a little pet, it's not him. But basically he refuses to give Raymond any money.
So Raymond curb crawls after him:
Trying to persuade him. And eventually he says "What do I need to do, give you a blowjob?". Zac is like "...What?". Raymond is like:
Then he grins and drives off. Zac watches:
And says 'That's it, go kill yourself'. But then he hears some/Raymond's brakes suddenly squeal, and he turns around again.
Later on, when Raymond gets in late at night, his dad tells him someone left an envelope for him.
But there's no message or mark to say who it's from:
So Raymond smells the envelope:
That's a pretty usual way for siblings to identify each other, yeah? By their smell?
Later on again everyone gets together for Christian's wedding. Raymond turns up late, but he does turn up. Zac tries to go for a handshake:
But Raymond's not just letting him get that:
Also so he can tell him "I'll pay you back".
Later on, at the reception, Raymond is out in his car doing some coke and making out with his new girlfriend, and he sees Zac run off to a car with a guy. He doesn't look upset about it:
Zac and the guy are only going off to have a smoke, but the guy ends up giving him a 'shotgun', which seems to involve one person holding a lit cigarette in their mouth backwards and letting someone else suck the smoke out of it from just in front of their lips. But some random guy from the wedding passes the car and sees them and it looks a lot like they're kissing, and he runs off. Raymond sees the guy and his reaction, and can sort of see into the car a bit, and is like:
He goes back into the party, and his dad sees him and asks what's so funny, and he says nothing. But then, the guy who saw Zac in the car starts talking to someone else about how he saw Zac french kissing a boy in the parking lot, just down the bar from Raymond and his dad, and about how "Junior's a fag".
Raymond is not really pleased about this:
Their dad stares at Zac, who is dancing with a girl, but near the guy he's meant to have been making out with in the parking lot:
And is horrified. While Raymond goes to beat the guy who was talking and his friend up.
Unfortunately ruining Christian's wedding reception in the process. Zac and his dad go out into the parking lot and have a fight, where his dad accuses him of being gay, and Zac basically says yes he is, but he didn't actually kiss that guy. But he'd love it if he had. Unfortunately Zac's girlfriend overhears this, and runs off crying. Zac's dad tells him to go, just go. So Zac does.
The next part is the ending, so if you don't want to be spoilered for that, I suggest you look away now.
Right. So Zac goes away. He disappears, and we find out that he's gone to Jerusalem, to do some travelling, and to live out his mother's dream of going to the holy land. And also to find a guy to actually sleep with, finally. Meanwhile we see scenes of Raymond taking more drugs and taking heroin and getting really messed up at home.
Zac sleeps with a guy, and then wanders out into the desert the next day. There's been a long-running theme about praying and Zac hating the fact that he's gay so much that he's constantly putting himself in dangerous situations, thinking that if he makes it through, or endures it, he'll be 'cured'. So today he goes wandering out really far into the desert. Eventually he turns back, but then he collapses, dehydrated.
Then he hears a motorcycle pull up, and someone starts sprinkling water on his face.
It's Raymond.
But not really.
The guy takes him back to his tent and lets him recover. Zac doesn't seem interested in recovering at first, but then one morning we see him sitting up on a sand dune, seemingly a bit more at peace with himself.
He returns home, but his parents aren't at the house. They're in the hospital. Because Raymond is there.
His parents, or his mother at least, are really happy to see him. His mother says it's a sign that he's returned, and that Zac can cure Raymond. It's not clear if he's actually intending to try to do that - he's long since told his mother he doesn't have a gift, and has said he's an atheist - but one way or another, he takes Raymond's hand.
That night Zac and his four brothers all sleep over in Raymond's room.
And when they're all asleep someone comes in and kneels beside Zac.
But not to be nice to him.
The next morning they get the phonecall that Raymond is dead. They have the funeral, and Zac and Raymond's dad has already said to Zac since he came back that if Zac is gay, he can't accept that. Tragically, he said it was partly because he couldn't ever go along with Zac denying himself one of the greatest joys in life, having children, and that he never knew that more strongly than since Raymond was in hospital and he'd come close to losing one of his children. But then after Raymond's funeral, when Zac's dad has hugged all his other sons as they left, he shakes Zac's hand and Zac is about to go, and then his dad pulls him back and gives him a proper hug. A proper proper hug.
One of the last things we see in the film is Zac leaving a cannabis plant on Raymond's grave:
And then he explains in a voiceover over scenes of him and his dad when they are clearly older that he didn't know if it was Raymond dying, or if his dad just sort of got over it in time, but after Raymond's funeral they were back to how they were before Zac's dad thought he might be gay again, and it took a while for him to be completely okay with it, but eventually they were okay, and they never mentioned their problems ever again.
So. One day I'll probably get the hang of doing pimping/picspam without just telling people the whole plot of the film. But anyway. I love Zac/Raymond. Like I say, the film is a lot more about Zac's relationship with his father, and I kind of slash Zac with his father a bit, but oh God, Zac and Raymond. I love that their relationship is largely based on a sort of unspoken fight for their father's love, and that they both sort of end up the outcasts of the family. And I'm a little bit ashamed that it took me till I did this picspam to notice how even though they fight all the time, they're actually massively alike. Especially after screencapping them in the car as Raymond gives Zac a ride. The film makes a big deal about how Zac's dad is a big music lover, and Zac also ends up a big music lover, but Raymond sort of clearly is as well. One of the few things Raymond gets told off for when he and Zac are young is about turning his music down, and we see him sneaking off with records sometimes, and wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt, who Zac really seems to like as well. Zac and Raymond are the only two brothers we see smoking, and Raymond has a motorcycle and we see Zac on a scooter early on in the film. And obviously Zac seems to like hanging around in his brother's bedroom when he's young. It really just seems like they both either really tried to be like their father, or Zac saw the approval Raymond was getting and tried to be like him without realising it, or Zac and Raymond are just accidentally really alike without every realising it. And obviously the sexuality thing is a big difference between them, but even though Raymond is kind of a prick about the idea/fact that Zac is gay, with all his jokes he sadly still seems a lot more okay with Zac possibly being gay than their father is.
And there's obviously a big theme running through the film about Zac and his dad having trouble with their relationship because of the suspicion that Zac is gay, but watching it back it seems like there's possibly also a bit of a strained relationship between Raymond and his mother, though she does have the slightly more justifiable reasons that Raymond is bringing drugs into the house where his younger brothers live and is sort of a massive dick to the women in his life. And then there's just the tragic aspect, that Raymond is clearly a bit of a screw-up and possibly a lot more messed up than Zac is, and was possibly always heading down the self-destructive road. And the fact that it possibly took Raymond's death to get Zac's dad to accept the fact that Zac's gay and get over it and love him anyway. And then there's just the fact that Zac and Raymond fought so much and didn't get on, but Raymond turned out to love Zac more than he probably ever acted like he did, and Zac turned out to love Raymond more than he probably thought he did. And oh.
I do feel a bit bad about it, because I know the film is semi-biographical for one of the writers or directors or something, in that he was gay and his dad wouldn't accept it until one of the man's brothers died, and after that his dad did accept it and get back in contact with him. So it's possible that all the affectionate bits between Zac and Raymond are sort of that guy's attempts at sort of reconnecting with his dead brother. But even with that, I still find it a really slashy relationship. It's quite a tricky pairing as well though, because by the time they start being nice to each other and getting a bit closer, it's pretty much straight after that that Zac leaves, and Raymond takes an overdose and then dies. The only real fic you could write would either be ghostsex, some sort of fantasy scenario where Raymond comes back somehow, or an AU where he never died. Or some slightly antagonistic pre-slash stuff from when they were younger, which given the way they talk to each other and act around each other seems slightly in-keeping with the canon. But I have to say I'm personally pretty happy with most of those scenarios.
Zac and Raymond. I LOVE THEM.
I'm slightly torn over which pairing to do next week. It's either going to be Daniel/Eli from There Will Be Blood or Louise/Jean from Female Agents. It sort of feels like I should get some women in at some point, but Louise/Jean is pretty much my main film femslash pairing, so it might be an idea not to get them out of the way too quickly. And Female Agents is the other main French-speaking film I love, and doing one after the other seems a bit odd. I don't know. I'll have to decide I guess.
I was also thinking about doing a pairing a week for three weeks, and then on each fourth week either just pimping a film I love with no real pairing in it, or without that being the main reason I love it, or posting about a non-film pairing I have. One has pictures, but the other has pairings. Decisions, decisions.
C.R.A.Z.Y.: Zac/Raymond
I am unusually up before noon today. Which does mean that I have the time to make this post, but I may also lapse into incoherence at some point. I'm very sorry if that happens.
Anyway. I should say that this is an incest pairing, so if you don't like that kind of thing you probably won't be interested. I was going to say that it was probably my favourite brother/brother incest pairing, but that was mostly because I couldn't think of any others I had, and then I remember the King brothers on Emmerdale and things got complicated. But Zac/Raymond is definitely right up there near the top, at the very least.
C.R.A.Z.Y. is a Canadian film, and a Quebecois film, so it's all in French. It's a family drama about a boy who grows up in the 60s and 70s and is pretty clearly probably gay, and how his family cope or fail to cope with that. It's actually quite a sad film in a lot of ways, a lot of it is about how his dad hates him for being gay, or hates that part of him, and he hates himself because of it. But a lot of it's quite funny too, and a lot of it is pretty beautiful. And it's got this storyline about the boy and one of his brothers running through it, which I quite love.
The main character is Zac, who is the fourth youngest of five brothers. Zac/Raymond is not actually a massive part of the film, it's mostly about Zac and his relationship with his father, and how Zac feels about himself, but it's definitely a big part of the film, and a pretty definite storyline going on besides the bigger part of the action.
We actually meet Zac in the womb just before he's born, and then watch him be born, in 1960, and we see his brothers around at that point as well. But the first time he starts talking about his life or his brothers is when he's about five.
This is baby Zac:
He tells us that his three brothers are morons, but worst of all is Raymond, who is his "sworn enemy".
::heart::
Now if you're me, pretty much the moment any character said they had a brother who was their sworn enemy is about the time you'd start developing a pairing.
Zac says that he can understand his father being proud of his brother Christian, who's really gifted academically, or Antoine, who's really good at sports, but not why he's proud of Raymond, who's kind of just a dick. It soon becomes clear that Zac's dad is quite proud of Raymond because he has a lot of girlfriends. Whereas Zac, who does things like ask for prams for Christmas (which is also his birthday), and who his dad catches dressing up in his mother's dressing gown and earrings, is not looked always looked on quite as fondly. His dad starts being a lot stricter with him, which upsets Zac quite a lot.
He starts acting up and breaks something of his dad's, and claims it was an accident, but then later dreams about confessing in church that it wasn't an accident, but the priest turns out to be Raymond, who says he's going to tell their father.
Zac's relationship with his mother is a lot better, however, partly because she doesn't like how his dad treats him, and partly because she's very religious and she believes that because he was born on Christmas and his baby brother stops crying when Zac holds him, that he's got a healing gift from God. She takes him to see another religious woman who is supposed to have a healing gift, and she teaches Zac prayers to say which can heal people, and Zac's family and friends get into the habit of calling up when they're hurt and asking Zac to think of them.
Which he does:
Raymond and his other brothers aren't terribly impressed with his healing gift:
Later during the same meal, their dad tells them that Zac is going to summer camp, unlike any of his brothers. This is Raymond being thrilled that Zac is going to camp and is upset about it:
Eventually we jump ahead to Zac's fifteenth birthday. Zac is annoyed at Raymond, who only turns up to their grandmother's Christmas Eve party/his birthday party for an hour every year, and then runs off again. When Zac blows out the candles on his cake someone tells him to make a wish, and Raymond says it won't come true because he can't get it up yet.
Zac is not terribly pleased about that.
Raymond also seems to like to torment his brother in other ways:
Later on Zac sees his brother leaving the party about an hour or so later, and is all "ppft".
Now that Zac is a bit more grown up he's developed more of a taste for music, which he's possibly got from his father, who's a big music lover as well. He seems to be a big fan of David Bowie, and at one point paints up his face, and sings along really loudly to 'Space Oddity' in his bedroom. However, eventually his brother Antoine comes in and pushes him over, asks if he's done imitating "that faggot" yet, turns the music off, and reveals that pretty much the entire neighbourhood was watching Zac through his bedroom window, and says he's made the whole family look like a bunch of idiots.
But he doesn't have any problems at school over it because it turns out there are some advantages to having a "crazy brother":
Who's totally willing to help out, for a mere $2.
Not very long after that, I think we get a scene where Zac and his little brother Yvan are watching TV, and then Raymond walks in, changes the channel and sits down. Zac says they were watching that show, and Raymond tells him to "Shut up, fag". Zac is obviously a bit upset about this, but their dad also overhears, and comes in to demand that Raymond apologise to his brother. Raymond looks somewhere between amused and horrified that his dad would actually make him apologise to Zac, or one of his brothers at all, for one of the times he insults them.
Zac slowly gets more and more upset, partly because of his brother, and partly because his dad is getting so worked up about Raymond calling him a 'fag'.
Raymond eventually gets up and tries to run out of the room, but his dad screams at him to apologise to Zac. And then, in what is one of my favourite moments of the film, Raymond apologises, to their dad.
Then he runs off, and pretty soon afterwards his brother Antoine comes in and says he's been in a fight, and their brother Christian asks who it was and makes fun of him for getting in a fight with a 'fag', and Antoine tells him to 'get lost, fag', and their father comes in all furious about his sons constantly calling each other fags. Anyone would think they were a bunch of fairies, he says. But his point about how terrible it was for Raymond to call Zac a fag is clearly slightly undercut.
We later on learn some of Zac's other hobbies, like going into Raymond's room to steal some of his weed.
And spit in his bed.
Then Zac gets into a car accident and ends up resting at home for a bit, and we find out that when his mum and dad have gone to work, his favourite thing to do is go down into Raymond's room and jerk off to gay porn.
Which mysteriously seems to be kept in Raymond's room. Unless it's just porn, that happens to have some pictures of naked men in it. But anyway. One day, Raymond comes home early, and Zac has to hide, and he ends up watching his brother get a blow job.
This ends up being a regular thing, coming down and hiding in his brother's room and watching while he hands out weed to girls and has sex with them. The shutters seem to slide shut whenever things get too heavy, but whether that's just because they can't show anything explicit in a film, or just so they can segue from one girl to the next, or because he's happy to watch foreplay but not actual sex is not clear. And it may just be that he's interested in sex generally, but given that Zac is pretty clearly meant to be gay at this point, exactly who he's watching is not clear. But anyway, this carries on until one day when he gets caught.
And Raymond gives him a black eye.
But whoops. Zac goes and tells everyone at school all about Raymond's exploits, and the school principal ends up hearing about it and calling Zac's parents, and telling Zac's mother about it. Prompting her to go searching through Raymond's room, and eventually find his weed. And then she or she and their dad throw Raymond out of the house.
Zac is sorry and tries to help out:
But Raymond insists that Zac stay away from him:
Zac tries to insist he didn't grass on him, but to no avail. Almost immediately after Raymond leaves, Antoine asks if he can have Raymond's room, at which point Zac is like "No, I want his room!". But no-one gets his room.
Later on, we jump forward to Zac's 20th birthday. Zac has decided that he hates being probably gay and the trouble it causes so much that he'll just get a girlfriend, and they live together and have lots of sex, and he has a job as a DJ, and he's pretty satisfied and his dad is pretty happy with him. Zac and his dad have a singalong at his birthday party.
Raymond is not thrilled about it.
Then their brother Christian announces that he and his girlfriend are getting married, and Raymond's girlfriend Doris is really ecstatic, and jokes that she and Raymond should make it a double wedding. He tells her to sit down because she looks like a damn fool. Zac and everyone else are pretty offended by this. But Zac's the one who actually has it out with him. We learn that there are two taboo subjects in the family: Zac and Raymond, for gayness and drug addiction/prison. And we learn once again that they don't get on.
"Zac: [to Doris} Tell him to go to hell."
"Raymond: Shut up, fag."
"You seem to be sniffing a lot for someone in detox."
"Sucking cock's made you a prick?"
"Your ass must've been raw after prison."
"You'd have enjoyed that, huh?"
The family demands that they stop this, but Zac isn't done. He throws his drink on Raymond:
And Raymond has to be held back from attacking him:
Zac basically comes off the best out of that argument.
An unspecified amount of time later, Zac goes to see his parents, and finds out that Raymond has moved back in with them. Apparently it's just until he gets back on his feet, and their dad is convinced Raymond really wants to sort himself out, he says he's really determined. During the conversation, Raymond comes into the kitchen, and sees that Zac's there, and things are a bit quiet between them, but civil. Zac says he should go not long after that, and their dad asks if he wants a ride, but Raymond says he'll take him.
But it turns out Raymond has an ulterior motive for giving him a ride. Before Zac gets out of the car, Raymond says he wants to ask something, and says he needs money. Zac is like "pfft".
Raymond says their dad is always going on about how his 'little pet' makes more than he does. Zac says if their dad has a little pet, it's not him. But basically he refuses to give Raymond any money.
So Raymond curb crawls after him:
Trying to persuade him. And eventually he says "What do I need to do, give you a blowjob?". Zac is like "...What?". Raymond is like:
Then he grins and drives off. Zac watches:
And says 'That's it, go kill yourself'. But then he hears some/Raymond's brakes suddenly squeal, and he turns around again.
Later on, when Raymond gets in late at night, his dad tells him someone left an envelope for him.
But there's no message or mark to say who it's from:
So Raymond smells the envelope:
That's a pretty usual way for siblings to identify each other, yeah? By their smell?
Later on again everyone gets together for Christian's wedding. Raymond turns up late, but he does turn up. Zac tries to go for a handshake:
But Raymond's not just letting him get that:
Also so he can tell him "I'll pay you back".
Later on, at the reception, Raymond is out in his car doing some coke and making out with his new girlfriend, and he sees Zac run off to a car with a guy. He doesn't look upset about it:
Zac and the guy are only going off to have a smoke, but the guy ends up giving him a 'shotgun', which seems to involve one person holding a lit cigarette in their mouth backwards and letting someone else suck the smoke out of it from just in front of their lips. But some random guy from the wedding passes the car and sees them and it looks a lot like they're kissing, and he runs off. Raymond sees the guy and his reaction, and can sort of see into the car a bit, and is like:
He goes back into the party, and his dad sees him and asks what's so funny, and he says nothing. But then, the guy who saw Zac in the car starts talking to someone else about how he saw Zac french kissing a boy in the parking lot, just down the bar from Raymond and his dad, and about how "Junior's a fag".
Raymond is not really pleased about this:
Their dad stares at Zac, who is dancing with a girl, but near the guy he's meant to have been making out with in the parking lot:
And is horrified. While Raymond goes to beat the guy who was talking and his friend up.
Unfortunately ruining Christian's wedding reception in the process. Zac and his dad go out into the parking lot and have a fight, where his dad accuses him of being gay, and Zac basically says yes he is, but he didn't actually kiss that guy. But he'd love it if he had. Unfortunately Zac's girlfriend overhears this, and runs off crying. Zac's dad tells him to go, just go. So Zac does.
The next part is the ending, so if you don't want to be spoilered for that, I suggest you look away now.
Right. So Zac goes away. He disappears, and we find out that he's gone to Jerusalem, to do some travelling, and to live out his mother's dream of going to the holy land. And also to find a guy to actually sleep with, finally. Meanwhile we see scenes of Raymond taking more drugs and taking heroin and getting really messed up at home.
Zac sleeps with a guy, and then wanders out into the desert the next day. There's been a long-running theme about praying and Zac hating the fact that he's gay so much that he's constantly putting himself in dangerous situations, thinking that if he makes it through, or endures it, he'll be 'cured'. So today he goes wandering out really far into the desert. Eventually he turns back, but then he collapses, dehydrated.
Then he hears a motorcycle pull up, and someone starts sprinkling water on his face.
It's Raymond.
But not really.
The guy takes him back to his tent and lets him recover. Zac doesn't seem interested in recovering at first, but then one morning we see him sitting up on a sand dune, seemingly a bit more at peace with himself.
He returns home, but his parents aren't at the house. They're in the hospital. Because Raymond is there.
His parents, or his mother at least, are really happy to see him. His mother says it's a sign that he's returned, and that Zac can cure Raymond. It's not clear if he's actually intending to try to do that - he's long since told his mother he doesn't have a gift, and has said he's an atheist - but one way or another, he takes Raymond's hand.
That night Zac and his four brothers all sleep over in Raymond's room.
And when they're all asleep someone comes in and kneels beside Zac.
But not to be nice to him.
The next morning they get the phonecall that Raymond is dead. They have the funeral, and Zac and Raymond's dad has already said to Zac since he came back that if Zac is gay, he can't accept that. Tragically, he said it was partly because he couldn't ever go along with Zac denying himself one of the greatest joys in life, having children, and that he never knew that more strongly than since Raymond was in hospital and he'd come close to losing one of his children. But then after Raymond's funeral, when Zac's dad has hugged all his other sons as they left, he shakes Zac's hand and Zac is about to go, and then his dad pulls him back and gives him a proper hug. A proper proper hug.
One of the last things we see in the film is Zac leaving a cannabis plant on Raymond's grave:
And then he explains in a voiceover over scenes of him and his dad when they are clearly older that he didn't know if it was Raymond dying, or if his dad just sort of got over it in time, but after Raymond's funeral they were back to how they were before Zac's dad thought he might be gay again, and it took a while for him to be completely okay with it, but eventually they were okay, and they never mentioned their problems ever again.
So. One day I'll probably get the hang of doing pimping/picspam without just telling people the whole plot of the film. But anyway. I love Zac/Raymond. Like I say, the film is a lot more about Zac's relationship with his father, and I kind of slash Zac with his father a bit, but oh God, Zac and Raymond. I love that their relationship is largely based on a sort of unspoken fight for their father's love, and that they both sort of end up the outcasts of the family. And I'm a little bit ashamed that it took me till I did this picspam to notice how even though they fight all the time, they're actually massively alike. Especially after screencapping them in the car as Raymond gives Zac a ride. The film makes a big deal about how Zac's dad is a big music lover, and Zac also ends up a big music lover, but Raymond sort of clearly is as well. One of the few things Raymond gets told off for when he and Zac are young is about turning his music down, and we see him sneaking off with records sometimes, and wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt, who Zac really seems to like as well. Zac and Raymond are the only two brothers we see smoking, and Raymond has a motorcycle and we see Zac on a scooter early on in the film. And obviously Zac seems to like hanging around in his brother's bedroom when he's young. It really just seems like they both either really tried to be like their father, or Zac saw the approval Raymond was getting and tried to be like him without realising it, or Zac and Raymond are just accidentally really alike without every realising it. And obviously the sexuality thing is a big difference between them, but even though Raymond is kind of a prick about the idea/fact that Zac is gay, with all his jokes he sadly still seems a lot more okay with Zac possibly being gay than their father is.
And there's obviously a big theme running through the film about Zac and his dad having trouble with their relationship because of the suspicion that Zac is gay, but watching it back it seems like there's possibly also a bit of a strained relationship between Raymond and his mother, though she does have the slightly more justifiable reasons that Raymond is bringing drugs into the house where his younger brothers live and is sort of a massive dick to the women in his life. And then there's just the tragic aspect, that Raymond is clearly a bit of a screw-up and possibly a lot more messed up than Zac is, and was possibly always heading down the self-destructive road. And the fact that it possibly took Raymond's death to get Zac's dad to accept the fact that Zac's gay and get over it and love him anyway. And then there's just the fact that Zac and Raymond fought so much and didn't get on, but Raymond turned out to love Zac more than he probably ever acted like he did, and Zac turned out to love Raymond more than he probably thought he did. And oh.
I do feel a bit bad about it, because I know the film is semi-biographical for one of the writers or directors or something, in that he was gay and his dad wouldn't accept it until one of the man's brothers died, and after that his dad did accept it and get back in contact with him. So it's possible that all the affectionate bits between Zac and Raymond are sort of that guy's attempts at sort of reconnecting with his dead brother. But even with that, I still find it a really slashy relationship. It's quite a tricky pairing as well though, because by the time they start being nice to each other and getting a bit closer, it's pretty much straight after that that Zac leaves, and Raymond takes an overdose and then dies. The only real fic you could write would either be ghostsex, some sort of fantasy scenario where Raymond comes back somehow, or an AU where he never died. Or some slightly antagonistic pre-slash stuff from when they were younger, which given the way they talk to each other and act around each other seems slightly in-keeping with the canon. But I have to say I'm personally pretty happy with most of those scenarios.
Zac and Raymond. I LOVE THEM.
I'm slightly torn over which pairing to do next week. It's either going to be Daniel/Eli from There Will Be Blood or Louise/Jean from Female Agents. It sort of feels like I should get some women in at some point, but Louise/Jean is pretty much my main film femslash pairing, so it might be an idea not to get them out of the way too quickly. And Female Agents is the other main French-speaking film I love, and doing one after the other seems a bit odd. I don't know. I'll have to decide I guess.
I was also thinking about doing a pairing a week for three weeks, and then on each fourth week either just pimping a film I love with no real pairing in it, or without that being the main reason I love it, or posting about a non-film pairing I have. One has pictures, but the other has pairings. Decisions, decisions.
