Described as an homage to Jean Genet’s 1950 film A Song of Love, Un chant d'amour (nouveau) is the kind of movie that results from dealing only vaguely with the images of a previous film without really comprehending or even investigating its true message. Director Sam Scott Schiavo, born in Philadelphia, but who has lived for much of his adult life in Europe, is a photographer who hasn’t a clue what Genet is attempting to convey in his 1950 movie.…

This truly beautiful film discusses issues of homosexuality and the transgender experience by using, strangely enough (perhaps we should say queerly) monogamous heterosexual men. Suddenly, in a landscape in which the basically still 19th century of Oslo is transforming itself into an urban 21st century city, these two men have experiences and dreams quite out of the ordinary which they find both troubling and, queerly enough, quite pleasant. It hasn't truly changed their basic natures at all, but the experiences…