Released, as it is, in a time suffused with homophobia, erotiphobia, and, of course, death by sex, this French-Canadian thriller is a brave little gem indeed. Tightly edited shots of a handsome young man running fearfully through the streets of Quebec are intercut with a scene of two men making love. At the height of their passion, one man snatches up a carving knife and slits the other’s throat. The killer is Yves (Dupuis), a male prostitute, and the victim is Claude (Pichette), his lover, and for the next 90 minutes the audience is treated to a bizarre, almost confessional exploration of the human condition and the nature of the beast. After the murder, Yves rings up a police officer and offers to meet him at a local judge’s house. Yves conveniently has the key, and he wants to get it all off his chest — the judge, his tormented life, and the fact that he has just killed the only person he has ever loved. As off-putting as this might all sound, Boudin keeps the film moving at a swift pace, circling the cop and the killer with the camera, swooping in and darting about, never quite giving us a chance to become bored with what is essentially a two-person, one-set film. As Yves, Dupuis is convincingly world-weary, handsome in a street way, and shrouded in a dark, confused malaise of the soul. The alleys in which he sells his body have claimed him for their own long ago, and it is only with this one terrible act that he finally realized what he has become. Not a film for all tastes, Being at Home with Claude is instead an emotional powderkeg that leaves you feeling drained, shocked, and uneasy for hours afterwards.
This article appears in July 16 • 1993 (Cover).