*A look back at one of 1998's most strangely sexual, borderline offensive fetish films--"Apt Pupil."

Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy" caused an outrage when it was published in 1961. Not only did the confessional poet compare her own struggles to the Holocaust, but she spoke of a Nazi fetishism common to certain women. As she opined, "Every woman adores a fascist, the boot in the face, the brute, brute heart of a brute like you."

Plath's poetry now reads, to some, like Nancy Drew gone berserk, but "Daddy" was and still is sexually potent stuff. Filled with the repulsion and attraction inspired by the "neat moustache" and the "Aryan eye, bright blue," Plath was admitting something rarely expressed by women: Both Daddy and Nazis were darkly sexy.

But what about for men? As Oscar Wilde—the "daddy" of homoerotic aestheticism--would probably agree, the murky Dionysian dwelling beneath the jack-booted Apollonian is a fantasy image that many men, gay or straight, could find attractive. You’ve seen it explored/salivated over and made chic all over the place—from Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling’s sexual recreation in The Night Porter to the Nazi-fixated Mel Brooks’ Nurse Diesel giving Harvey Korman the treatment in High Anxiety to the comics of Tom O’ Finland to even, the fantastically handsome, shirtless Ralph Fiennes scratching his puffy stomach in Schindler’s List. And you see it in what was, presumably, a “no brainer” teen movie—Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil, a movie about Nazi adoration that carries a cunningly homoerotic subtext.

Based on a novella by Stephen King, the picture stars fresh faced Brad Renfro as Todd Bowden, a bright 16-year-old so fascinated by World War II-era Germany that he’s acquired a sort of sickness, a predilection for evil. Having memorized facts, faces and images of the Holocaust, Todd recognizes an old man on a bus as Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellen), the "Butcher of Treblinka." Following the man home, Todd works his way into the exceedingly private man's house and blackmails him into a deal: In exchange for not reporting the war criminal to the proper authorities (Todd’s confirmed the old man's identity by his fingerprints) Dussander must tell Todd all of his stories. "I want to hear everything," he implores, "everything they don't tell us in school." Soon the deal turns into an ominous power game, and Todd, either haunted or hepped up by his Holocaust daydreams, begins to exhibit sociopathic behavior.

When the power shifts and Todd realizes that consorting with Nazis is perhaps not such a good idea after all, the youth becomes more involved in Dussander's dark world. And herein lies his dilemma: Will Todd go on with his life a normal college-bound teenager, or will he, as a closeted Fascist, embody a new and dangerous future?

Though the questions are intriguing, the film seems unsure of what it's trying to accomplish. Or maybe it's just being coy. Is it a suspenseful and “intelligent” Singer film, in the manner of The Usual Suspects? Is it another example of Stephen King's non-horror side, like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me? Or is it merely an over-the-top teenybopper movie that just happens to star the great British thespian Ian McKellen?

It is none and all of these things, and as such remains almost mediocre. Almost. Viewed for its homoerotic subtext, (and with Singer, that’s not so surprising) Apt Pupil is a terribly interesting picture. Like Plath's work, Pupil uses fascism to magnify a subverted sexual force—an attraction to the sexually dangerous, the “brute, brute heart.”

Throughout the film Singer spices the movie up with curious situations, shots and suggestive lines. In a scene reminiscent of Vertigo, Todd has Dussander dress in the costume he compulsively cherishes— the Nazi uniform— and then orders him to march in place. Like Vertigo’s manically fetishistic Jimmy Stewart making over Kim Novak into his perfected cool blonde, Todd yells, "Faster! Faster!" and the old Aryan marches with frightening hysteria to the point of sexual release. In another scene, Todd, at the behest of his friend, takes a girl out, only to be sullen and callous. When things turn sexual, the uninterested Todd withdraws, leaving the girl to taunt, "Do you even like girls?" No, it seems he doesn't. He likes Dussander—or the fantasy of Dussander.

With an eye for the subversive, Singer lingers on certain moments long enough for us to wonder (and then really understand) just what the hell is going on. One involves Todd's guidance counselor (David Schwimmer) who, after lecturing the boy for his plummeting grades (too much extracurricular activity, perhaps?), gives Todd his home phone number. He puts his hand on the boy's arm, looks into his eyes and emphatically tells him he can call for anything. Anything. Uh-huh.

But perhaps one of the greatest sexual moments occurs during a heated (hot?) exchange between Dussander and Todd. A worked up Dussander utters the blatant double entendre, "You're fucked. Don't you see, my boy? We are fucking each other!"

Are they? Thanks to the brilliant McKellen and the impeccably blank-faced, Tom Ripley-like Renfro, we never really know. Singer managed to make an otherwise obvious and middling film a complicated depiction of frustrated homosexuality mingling dangerously with buried jack booted carnality. Did the studio know about this? Or were they secretly, perhaps, even subconsciously in league with Sylvia Plath. Every studio head privately “adores a facist.”

Read more Kim Morgan at her blog,  Sunset Gun.

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