Flesh and Fuel

A truck driver chooses an independent life on the road. At what point does independence turn into loneliness and the need for space for a fear of intimacy? Flesh and Fuel focuses on universal themes with a tenderness that is sure to tug the audience’s heartstrings. At a service stop, Étienne (Alexis Manenti), an unassuming middle-aged French truck driver meets Bartosz (Julian Świeżewski), a wily Polish truck driver. The encounter pushes Étienne to look for love and closeness: needs that he has buried deep. 

The film moves in the register of social realism. The audience gets a look into the lives of truck drivers, a profession that is essential for running society yet unfamiliar to most of us. Old school truck drivers like Étienne are fuelled by pride in their work and solidarity with their co-workers, whereas Bartosz’s employers attempt to undercut traditional companies resulting in inhumane work conditions.

The film, premiered in the Cannes film festival, examines themes of loneliness, masculinity, class and societal change through a queer lens in a delightful way that builds no drama from homosexuality.

Saara Tuusa