Reading the poem I thought I’d watched Eternal Summer on Netflix last year but resisted checking My List, in part to avoid any questioning of memory or memorability. I wanted the poem to be my focus. Thus, there is no spoiler alerting going on in this review comment or poem as there are at least four movies playing in the piece: the two that the narrator (from the note after the poem I’m confident it is Janet Charman) both writes (of) and, with the sequel, directs, and the two that I (did) see when reading. Plus a flashback, mine.
‘Eternal Summer, 1’ would seem to reference a scene from the 2006 movie, a suspended disbelieved depiction of sensual, sexual tenderness (intimacy? the opposite of which is?) between two mates that had/has me back in the early 1980s and lines from an unpublished poem, Out on life, where I know I imagined something similar about a soon-to-be boyfriend:
On the stairs to the sea/purple waves/I find myself thinking about you/I found myself/ touching your hair/you weren’t there.
Where was/am I? Yes, seeing reading. In ‘Eternal Summer,1’ the ‘i’ voice watches over the tender scene while being watched/washed? over watching. Reading this scrutiny I envisage scenes of shelter and anticipation: come on mates, beyond the soft kisses of purple waves, try (something) harder, more purposeful: talking, feelings, neck massage. Did anything such happen in Leste Chen’s movie? Rather like the 1980s, the sequel imagines not that much.
In the end note Charman writes, ‘I wanted a sequel…’. In ‘Eternal Summer, 2’, the poem/sequel written most likely 16 years on from the original, there is fondness for the film and its people along with concerns for the career choices (not) available to the actors in the interim. This relates to the broader impetus of the rewriting that wants to moderate for the 2020s the degree of disbelief needed earlier by dispensing with elements of Eternal Summer the film. This does suggest happier endings.
What can be seen in reading the ‘Eternal Summer, 2’ script-poem (working subtitle: canteen of the soul?) includes visions of what won’t be seen from the 2006 film: the fear, fright, and confusion of first love and longing; the pain and harmful dangers of loneliness and isolation; the inhibitions of male desire, rendered through the lens of misogyny. The ‘femme’ of the original threesome now soars on post-nymph wings in the leading role, The Photographer. I see she/her has globally acclaimed exhibitions on personal and political freedom, empowerment. The mates (you/your) are secure in supporting roles. In the many stories available to them they are together. In 2019 Taiwan legalised same-sex marriage. I can see them in matching white suits at the karaoke wedding reception or something similar-similar-but-different.
Having seen the sequel and been implicated in pirated versions of the original, I won’t be checking my My List. However, to utilise any Netflix subscription, I’d suggest their 2022 series ‘Heartstopper’. Forty years on the recent purple wave gazing I’ve done has been through the sharp eyes of a poetic alter ego, Argento Q (he/him). An example, Argento builds a relationship, is in AUP’s 2021 volume Out Here: An anthology of Takatāpui and LGBTQIA+ writers from Aotearoa. Finally, when I read or hear a poem or tale, I see it rolling – but when I watch a film? It’s not the same.