While I was travelling around Spain I saw a lot of art depicting Saint Sebastian, a supposedly gay saint. I seemed to remember hearing of the existence of a film about him, so I thought I might buy a copy.

Once it arrived I thought it might be nice to have my friend Patricius over for a meal, have a look at my travel scrapbook, and watch the film.

Dinner was ready as soon as he arrived – a fish stew with a bit of chilli heat (he’s pescatarian). While we ate, he chatted about his latest sexploits! Unfortunately, he’s got a gammy leg and the adventure set his recovery back a little. I could relate!

I enjoyed sharing my scrapbook with him; he was really interested and it sparked off various memories of his own. While we talked I relived parts of my holiday.

I am feeling excited about next year’s voyage across Spain.

Then came the film.

It started with a party in Diocletian’s palace. I’d love to know what they were smoking when they came up with that scene!

Then I noticed that they were speaking Latin.

I’ve seen a couple of films where they speak Latin and they never feel convincing because unlike a living language the speakers don’t slur – everything they said was beautifully pronounced classical Latin.

The film was a little blurry. It was released in 1976!

The scenes were long and lingering. One might charitably call it artistic. Plenty of time to admire the naked chaps on screen.

The slow progress didn’t help us understand what was going on. If there was a plot, we failed to discover it. Somehow we managed to work out that the centurion had the hots for young Sebastian.

He had one hell of a way of expressing it!

Having Sebastian flogged. Then pegged out in the sun. Then having him shot with arrows.

Ok, the flogging sounds nice. But the other two I’ll take a raincheck on.

I’m not sure why Sebastian was made a Saint, beyond being martyred (I suppose that’s a good reason), however his powers of recovery from flogging and sunburn were incredible. Either that, or there were some serious continuity errors.

Come the end I looked at Patricius and said “Well, we’ve seen it now. We don’t ever have to watch it again.”