I was interested in this first feature by Andrew Haigh, and I wasn’t disappointed to see some of his Weekend style already under development here. There’s the intimacy in Haigh’s style that I liked so much in Weekend, and after watching Greek Pete, I was surprised I hadn’t recognized the documentary roots of that approach in the later fictional film. And the specificity I liked so much in Weekend is amply on display here, too. Life in Greek Pete is a series of apartments inhabited by guys in the early 20s with the furnishings and decor you’d expect in an apartment block….just as in Weekend. And like in Weekend, the cinematography consists of frequent, intimate close-ups and a soundtrack of voices talking over each other or speaking in the background while we’re watching another face. There are even forays into local, specific social locations.
However, in contrast to Weekend, Greek Pete fails as a film, and that largely because of its main character. Pete is simply not an interesting documentary subject. We get to know him well through the camera, but Pete is just an immature, somewhat shallow 24-year-old who has a big cock and isn’t inhibited. He may talk about missing his family during holidays and about saving money so he can buy his own house, but such statements have the heft of something a teenager might say. There’s not much wisdom or investment in these pro forma musings. Likewise, his relationship with his boyfriend doesn’t show much depth. They have sex, they play at staged bathtub scenes, but we see little intimacy through this documentary camera, either physical or emotional. And at this point in time, drug use and kinky sex scenes are almost to be expected in a film about a male rent boy, so those scenes aren't insightful or original either.
Greek Pete is a surprisingly uninteresting film by the maker of later, excellent film. The contrast of the two is a good lesson in how hard it is to make a good documentary, even for directors who are talented at fictional films.
