Confluences

In the opening of Marie-Claire Blais’s Songs for Angel, a woman named Mabel walks along a beach accompanied by her talkative parrot and two younger men. Petites Cendres and Robbie belong to a community of queer and trans performers whose work and lives revolve around the vibrant Porte du Baiser Saloon. They carry a heavy bag, which contains ginger beers and the ashes of their friend Angel, who has recently died of AIDS. The sun beats down and the air is fragrant with jasmine. Yet out on the ocean, Mabel spots a rubber dinghy bouncing on the waves, and within it a group of adults and children, their skin dark like her own. Are they pleasure seekers or refugees? Are they in danger? Before she can tell for sure, the boat fades from sight like an ominous mirage.

Life in the vicinity of death, sensuous beauty accompanied by the sinister: these pairings feature throughout Blais’s...