Quote of the (January)

Sad to admit I missed our pal David Opie's interview with Andrew Haigh on All of Us Strangers back in January because it's a really good one -- click on over to read it if you're not AOUS'd out (and if you are you're probably in the wrong place). Anyway the film is hitting blu-ray (in the UK, mind you) in a few weeks so this is sort of timely. In between timeliness anyway. Their conversation about the generational divide between gay men who lived through the AIDS crisis and those who came after really strikes at the heart of the film (obviously) so here's that bit:

Opie: That sex scene early on where Harry licks cum off Adam's chest really struck me, because any kind of contact with bodily fluids like this would have once been horrifying to Adam. Did you consciously include this scene in relation to Adam's shame and him overcoming it?

Haigh: Absolutely. That's the point of that shot to me. I think there's probably lots and lots of people who will not truly understand that at all. Of course, you will understand it because you understand it from a personal standpoint. There are two gay people of a different generation and one has no fear in that moment of what he's doing. The other one is still resistant to that. That's years of something within his body telling him to be resistant. And he overcomes it because of course, you can overcome it. Lots of people do overcome that fear and shame and that is the point. In that moment, there was a little bit of resistance, but the intimacy and the compassion of Harry in that moment allows him to overcome a sort of embedded fear."