Two People Exchanging Saliva (2024)

 

A superb, enthralling little movie which quite moved me.

Shot in evocative black and white, the award-winning short film by artist Alexander Singh and art historian and researcher Natalie Museata is an illicit queer love story set in a dystopian world where objects are paid for with slaps and kissing is illegal, punishable by death. Angine, an unhappily married woman, compulsively shops in a department store. 

There, she becomes fascinated by an innocent sales clerk, Malaise. Their secret relationship evolves into a dangerous love story that tests the limits of their repression-fueled world. 

A surreal yet chilling film, it is a sharp critique of control, but despite its dark premise, it remains a romantic tribute to those who dare to challenge the status quo.

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Alexandre Singh & Natalie Musteata are a couple and filmmaking duo. Alexandre is a Franco-Indian visual artist whose work has been collected by the MoMA and Guggenheim Museum, New York, and CNAP, Paris. Natalie is a Romanian-American writer, curator and filmmaker, with a PhD in art history and film. They live and work in Brooklyn, New York.

Available on YouTube.

The soundtrack is of amazing beauty, too.