Protagonist Summary

From left to right: Joe Loya, Mark Pierpont, Hans-Joachim Klein, Mark Salzman

Jessica Yu’s 2007 Protagonist is a documentary that follows the lives of four men, each who experienced a void in their lives, or from an early age either recognized in themselves, or was called out for being different. Each of these men’s lives took a different, almost tragic turn of events, but as their contemporary testimony suggests, they were able to find a way to live through their pain, violence, trauma, rejection and/or dejection they suffered in order to be able to living substantive lives. Yu wrote, directed, and co-produced the film. 

The most interesting part of the film to me was the integration of Greek drama, notably the famous dramatist, Euripides. I do not have extensive (or even a novice) understanding of Greek drama, so I had to look the playwright up. When I did, much of the film was put into perspective. According to Encyclopedia Britannica online, Euripides was known for writing his protagonists as average, flawed human beings with shortcomings that made them susceptible to doubt, chaos, irrationality and immorality (Encyclopedia Britannica). Apparently this method of character creation was innovative for its time. The gods played a large role in the Greek dramas of Euripides’ time. Euripides wrote characters who were not beholden to the gods and story lines that did not follow the formula of moral resolution, but rather left audiences ruminating in the meaningless suffering of the characters. This is obvious in each of the people Yu chose, as well as the way she tied in the classic Greek with the contemporary societal issues her own work deals with.

Mark Pierpont grew up in a strictly religious household, and began being ostracized by his family and schoolmates for being “weird” and “different;” distinctions Pierpont would eventually discover resulted from his homosexuality. Isolated, and unaware of his own sexual orientation at such a young age, Pierpont found solace in bible verses and church hymns. Mark Salzman came from a humble family where his father was a social worker and his mother worked out of their home as a piano instructor. Salzman recalled vividly the angst and anxiety his father would experience in wondering how to support a household. This worry transferred to Salzman, who admitted he worried throughout all his childhood and young adult life about how to fit in. He was bullied often, and actually colluded in the abuse just for the engagements with other children.

Joe Loya also came from an extremely religious background. His mother, who was ill, died when Loya was 11 and his father, stricken with grief, began to blame his children and savagely beat and punish them. Loya revered his father, who he recalls in the documentary, was the youngest elder ever named in the church despite the fact that he was Mexican—the only Mexican family in the entire congregation. In a dramatic climax of his teenage years, Loya tries to murder his father by stabbing him in the neck with a knife. Hans-Joachim Klein was born in post-Holocaust Germany. His mother committed suicide when Klein was one year old. After living with foster parents for about nine years, he moves in with his father, who he comes to discover is a Nazi. He suffers physical and verbal abuse at the hand of his biological father, who was a cop. Klein began to rebel against his father after he finds out his mother’s, and consequently, his own connection to Judaism at the age of 16. He runs away and joins a Marxist political faction.

Pierpont, as he grows older, simultaneously begins to experiment sexually and to renounce the feelings and experiences he is just beginning to explore. He memorizes entire chapters of the bible and repeats them incessantly in order to literally pray the gay away. He begins to minister, and actually gains notoriety for his anti-gay messages and tracts that he would distribute in predominately gay nightlife areas. Loya, who I believe begins experiencing the psychologically termed identification with the aggressor, discovers that the rush he experienced when he stabbed his father is one that he needs to feel repeatedly. He begins robbing banks and recounts the thrill that he got when he saw the fear in people’s faces when he disclosed that he had a weapon and intended to rob them. He says during his interview that since his religious upbringing had no middle ground between good and evil, since he knew he was no longer good, he began envisioning that he was serving evil. He would tell himself that the things he was stealing were his all along in order to overcome the anxiety he experienced prior to committing a robbery. 

Salzman, by pure circumstance, is introduced to Kung Fu, a 1970s American television drama starring David Carradine. Carradine was a student of martial arts, and Salzman recalls how composed and in control of himself Carradine’s character was. Feeling like he finally found a path made just for him, Salzman begins studying at a karate institute with an eccentric man who had unconventional practices that embodied the physicality of martial arts without the philosophy of self-control, which Salzman could not see because his own dire sense of longing to belong was being fulfilled through the brotherhood he was finding at the dojo. Klein, now a comrade, too was enjoying the family he found among fellow student activists. He lived among them, read the communist literature of the time and planned political disruptions to protest the wars, economic disparities and ethnic attacks that were occurring all over the world. Through a series of well-executed political disruptions, particularly his role as bodyguard for Jean-Paul Sartre, Klein gained notoriety… enough to get caught. While in prison, he experience horrid conditions. Many of his fellow comrades went on hunger strikes to protest the inhumane treatment. A close friend died during the hunger strike, which enraged Klein. When he was released, his disruptions turned into violent attacks and he eventually became a guerrilla terrorist.

To be Continued...