homosexuality

Le roi de l’évasion (The King of Escape)

by Robert Bell on May 20, 2010

in Film Festivals,Inside Out

Le roi de l'évasion (The King of Escape)
The King of Escape screens on Monday May 24 at 7:15pm at the ROM Theatre. Buy tickets here.

Le roi de l’évasion (The King of Escape) (Director: Alain Guiraudie): Like any playful, sur­realist French allegory, the title, The King of Escape, comes with a two­fold meaning, refer­ring to both the lit­eral tra­jectory of the film—wherein zaftig 42-year-old homo­sexual Armand (Ludovic Berthillot) runs from a variety of oddball characters—as well as the aca­demic sug­ges­tion, which posits queer life as a boyish escape from het­ero­norm­ative demands and expect­a­tions. It works on both levels, playing out as a less accom­plished and cal­cu­lated Francois Ozon film from the ‘90s with a decidedly dif­ferent, almost inverse perspective.

The iden­tity con­struct here is that of an aging man with impulse-control issues. He suc­ceeds as a salesman, step­ping on toes when he soli­cits out­side of his region (a theme con­sistent with all of his struggles), occa­sion­ally driving out to a gay cruising area on the hunt for endowed senior citizens—a Freudian indic­ator of passive role identification.

Initially, the film hops between his gay liaisons and fledgling curi­os­ities at het­ero­sexual life, playing res­cuer to an acquaintance’s 16-year-old daughter Curly (Hafsia Herzi) when she is attacked, waxing dream­like, but even­tu­ally lands a nar­rative thread with a romantic pur­suit. Dissatisfied with the lim­it­a­tions his Peter Pan life­style has imposed, he pur­sues the girl romantic­ally, des­pite con­tract pleas from her father Daniel (Luc Palun) and an overly obser­vant police com­mis­sioner who saddles him with a sexual offender bracelet.

Taking comedy from sheer auda­city, pecu­li­arity and sexual role expect­a­tions, the film works best when on the go. Whether Armand is recog­nizing inap­pro­priate erec­tions or strug­gling with the nas­cent sexual needs of a young girl, whose desires and role recog­ni­tion are quite dif­ferent from those of a 70-year-old gay man, there are con­sistent curi­os­ities and hil­ar­ities at every turn.

Of course, the niche sub­ject matter and less than flat­tering asser­tions do limit the poten­tial audi­ence, seeing as many won’t “get it” and many others won’t want to. But a pol­ished present­a­tion with a sharp and dir­ected sense of whimsy drive this one leaps and bounds beyond other genre offer­ings, for those inclined to such fare.

Tagged as: #insideout10, comedy, france, homosexuality

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Inside Out 2010

by Robert Bell on May 13, 2010 · 1 comment

in Film Festivals,Inside Out

2010 Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival
Editor’s Note: I’m very happy to wel­come Robert Bell to Toronto Screen Shots. Robert will be cov­ering Inside Out much more fully than we’ve been able to do in the past. He cur­rently writes for Exclaim! and is only slightly ashamed to admit he has over 6,000 movies in his DVD collection.

So, it’s that time of year when the Toronto gay­bour­hood is aflutter with Pride plan­ning, float design and ward­robe choices, be it fitted salmon-coloured polo shirts, feather boas, or studded cock-rings, which makes a big gay film fest­ival entirely apropos. Since this is the 20th anniversary of the GLBT (sorry, LGBT: an acronym change that I’m cer­tain involved pie charts, a Facebook peti­tion of some sort and a forth­right les­bian chan­neling her inner Susan Sontag) film fest, it’s noted with the tagline “20 Years of Queers”.

Looking at this year’s lineup of titles, which includes a Danish movie about gay neo-Nazis (Brotherhood) and another about 14th cen­tury Korean homos (A Frozen Flower), it’s refreshing to see how few of them focus on the trade­marks of queer cinema, such as psychotic les­bians get­ting raped, or sui­cidal gay AIDS vic­tims. There’s some great rep­res­ent­a­tion of world cinema, along with doc­u­ment­aries, shorts and the usual camp enter­tain­ment for all to enjoy come May 20–30.

In addi­tion to a doc about Joe Dallesandro (Little Joe), this year’s pro­gram includes titles such as The Last Summer of La Boyita, which explores the pains of adoles­cent Sapphic affec­tions and men­tions men­stru­ation twice in the plot syn­opsis. Think “Are you there God, it’s me Margaret”, but with les­bians and horses, an animal that no teenage girl is com­plete without.

Frozen Flower

Korean import A Frozen Flower offers up some period drama, action and 14th cen­tury cos­tumes, taking place at the end of the Goryeo Dynasty, but fea­tures steamy gay sex scenes–something I didn’t see in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

For those who love bodice-ripping BBC dramas, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister delivers the true story of the tit­ular les­bian writer and her kooky 19th cen­tury shenanigans.

Of course, no gay film fest­ival would be com­plete without fea­turing some titles about being dif­ferent in an assim­il­ative male-dominated society, and Le Fil and Eyes Wide Open offer per­spect­ives on this issue in Northern Africa and Jerusalem, respectively.

It’s not all stoic polit­ical fare though, with films like And Then Came Lola deliv­ering a saucy lesbo spin on Run Lola, Run, and Is It Just Me? delving into queer his­tri­onics in San Francisco.

I Am Love

That said, my per­sonal picks are the afore­men­tioned Brotherhood, Francois Ozon’s newest film Le Refuge, and I Am Love, which is said to fea­ture another impressive per­form­ance from the ever-wonderful Tilda Swinton. We all have our own tastes, how­ever, which is why you may want to see a full listing of titles over at insideout.ca.

Tagged as: homosexuality

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Humpday

by James McNally on July 17, 2009

in Theatrical Release

Humpday

Humpday (Director: Lynn Shelton): Two reviews in a row about films by women dir­ectors about the del­icate rela­tion­ships between men. But Humpday and The Hurt Locker (review) couldn’t be more dif­ferent. Where the latter rat­cheted up the ten­sion with action and explo­sions, Lynn Shelton’s film builds it with queasy laughter and an out­rageous game of chicken.

Ben (Mark Duplass) is a thirty-something trans­port­a­tion planner, hap­pily mar­ried to Anna (Alycia Delmore) and living in a nice house in Seattle. And then his old col­lege buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard) arrives in the middle of the night, looking for a place to crash after returning from an artists’ colony in Mexico. It’s clear that the two have taken dif­ferent paths since col­lege, but Ben doesn’t like the feeling that he’s become a cliche, so he accom­panies his friend to a wild party at the home of a bisexual artist Andrew’s just met. After many sub­stances have been con­sumed, the talk turns to Humpfest, Seattle’s ama­teur porn contest.

In a moment of drunken one-up-manship, Ben sug­gests to Andrew that they should make a tape of the two of them having sex. It will be the greatest art pro­ject ever, he says, it will be “beyond gay.” Challenging his “artist” buddy to con­tribute to an art pro­ject is a sly form of dare, and Andrew can’t say no. Even in the sober light of day, the two of them can’t seem to back down. The best scenes are of Andrew trying to let Ben back out. “I know this scene isn’t really for you,” he says, which only gets Ben to dig in his heels.

Shelton has per­fectly cap­tured the com­pet­it­ive­ness of men, even modern sens­itive men. The subtle chem­istry between Ben and Andrew is a joy to watch, even at its most uncom­fort­able. Each man’s fears are driving this ridicu­lous battle of wills. Ben’s afraid he’s lost whatever edge he might have had in col­lege, and Andrew feels that his artist per­sona is really just a phony mask cov­ering up a much more reg­ular guy. The comedy is sharp, but for me it was the comedy of recognition.

It’s also bit­ter­sweet, as these two guys realize that their friend­ship, genuine as it is, has changed as their lives have changed. I hope this won’t spoil the ending, but the emo­tional release the two friends even­tu­ally achieve is more ful­filling than any “money shot” could ever be.

P.S. You might also enjoy Shelton’s last film, another smart explor­a­tion of male friend­ship called My Effortless Brilliance (review).

Official site of the film

8/10(8/10)

Tagged as: bromance, comedy, friendship, homosexuality, manhood

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Cure for Love

by James McNally on May 24, 2009

in Documentaries

Cure for Love

Cure for Love (Directors: Francine Pelletier and Christina Willings): I first heard about this doc­u­mentary almost a year ago, and excitedly wrote to the film­makers asking for a copy. To my shame, I’ve had that copy for almost eight months and am only now get­ting around to it. Although it was an inquis­itive email from one of the dir­ectors that jolted me into action, I’m happy that my review also coin­cides with the end of the Inside Out fest, which I’ve just been too busy to cover, des­pite my best intentions.

Cure for Love begins cryptic­ally with a wed­ding cere­mony between a self-described gay man and his les­bian friend. Brian and Ana ori­gin­ally met online through the Living Hope Youth Forum, a bul­letin board for evan­gel­ical young people strug­gling with same-sex attrac­tion. In gen­eral, the evan­gel­ical sub­cul­ture frowns upon homo­sexu­ality and con­siders its expres­sion a sin. Many min­is­tries have cropped up to help people to curb their desires and Living Hope is just one example of these so-called “ex-gay” min­is­tries. This film intro­duces us to Brian and Ana, as well as to two other friends who met through Living Hope. John and Darren end up taking a dif­ferent journey than their friends, each embra­cing their sexu­ality while attempting to hang onto their faith. This film very sens­it­ively listens to its sub­jects as they describe their pain and their efforts at resolving the very real con­flicts within themselves.

John’s story is maybe the most affecting for me. This incred­ibly intel­li­gent and artic­u­late man describes how in high school he would cut phrases like “not man enough” and “I hate me” into his arms with knives in order to fend off more ser­ious thoughts of sui­cide. He describes being put on anti-psychotic med­ic­a­tion and seeking help from various “ex-gay” min­is­tries such as Living Hope and Exodus. He finally comes to the con­clu­sion that there must be some­thing wrong with a set of reli­gious beliefs that in the end led him to try to des­troy him­self. Even so, he care­fully exam­ines bib­lical and theo­lo­gical evid­ence to help him accept who he is and to enjoy a romantic rela­tion­ship with another man.

Darren also becomes uncom­fort­able with the teaching of groups like Exodus. In their founders’ stories of anonymous sex and rampant promis­cuity, Darren fails to find any­thing resem­bling his own story. He admits that he never even kissed a man until he was 27, and that instead of feeling dirty, he felt incred­ibly free. It’s painful to watch him recount how he had to pull back from a rela­tion­ship with a man he clearly loves because that man had not yet been able to accept his own homosexuality.

Cure for Love

Brian and Ana are per­haps the most enig­matic. Ana seems unhappy but resigned to a mar­riage she describes as “like having a room­mate for life.” Her unyielding view of what she thinks the Bible teaches about homo­sexu­ality will not let her change her mind, even as she and Brian visit with their old friend John and his new boy­friend Chris. Brian seems to be making the best of it. His “suc­cessful” mar­riage has given him new oppor­tun­ities to speak at churches and “ex-gay” min­istry con­fer­ences and he seems to enjoy these rewards enough to stop short of where John and Darren have gone. Maybe the prestige and sense of com­munity he enjoys is enough to sub­limate his desire for a real romantic and sexual rela­tion­ship. It’s Ana for whom I feel the most, since she’s not enjoying the same sense of reward or fulfillment.

Although dir­ectors Willings and Pelletier do occa­sion­ally bring in rep­res­ent­at­ives of some “ex-gay” and “ex-ex-gay” groups, I appre­ci­ated that they kept the focus very tightly on this small group of friends. Because they’re friends who have reached dif­ferent con­clu­sions, their attempts to remain close pro­ject a sense of dis­com­fort that makes you hurt for everyone involved. Cure for Love takes a very sens­itive approach to a com­plex inter­sec­tion of sub­cul­tures, and suc­ceeds in showing its sub­jects as real human beings.

It will be showing at the Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival on June 20 and at Vancouver’s Queer Film Festival in August, but this is the sort of doc­u­mentary that really needs a tele­vi­sion broad­cast or some other way to reach a much wider audi­ence. I sin­cerely hope it gets that opportunity.

9/10(9/10)

Tagged as: christianity, faith, homosexuality, religion

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SoleJourney

by James McNally on May 19, 2009

in Documentaries,DVD

SoleJourney

SoleJourney (Directors: Kate Burns and Sheila E. Schroeder): I’ve admired the work of Rev. Dr. Mel White and the Soulforce organ­iz­a­tion for years now and this doc­u­mentary, par­tially funded by Soulforce, prom­ised to shed some light on the organization’s con­tinuing fight against the anti-gay agenda of Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family organ­iz­a­tion. Unfortunately, the film comes up short for a number of reasons.

First and fore­most, it’s not ter­ribly clear what the main focus of the film is. The title itself con­fused me until I real­ized it was refer­ring to the 1000 Watt March, a Soulforce “action” in which GLBT fam­ilies marched from Denver to Colorado Springs (home to Focus on the Family), a dis­tance of 65 miles, in five-mile “relays.” But the march doesn’t even really enter into the film until about the halfway mark. For the first 30 minutes or so, we get some­thing closer to a his­tory of the begin­nings of Soulforce, and its con­nec­tion to the non-violent res­ist­ance philo­sophy of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Although Rev. Dr. White does appear in the film, I didn’t feel there was enough of him for this to be con­sidered a real his­tory of his organ­iz­a­tion. Instead there were lots of news clips emphas­izing the media’s view that Focus on the Family is an influ­en­tial and important organ­iz­a­tion. I found this unne­ces­sary, and it seemed to unbal­ance the film and expose its lack of structure.

When we do get to the march itself, we simply get random shots of small groups of people walking along the highway, inter­spersed with some footage of their reg­ular family lives at home. Although these fam­ilies are def­in­itely worthy of having their stories told, I wanted more of the at-home stuff and less of the anti­cli­mactic “march” stuff. I even enjoyed the talking head inter­views more than the cov­erage of the march, although none of it seemed to ever coalesce into a larger whole. I found the soundtrack cloy­ingly sweet, too, although it def­in­itely con­trib­uted to the overall “inspir­a­tional” feeling I think the film­makers were aiming for.

Soulforce’s mis­sion is to combat “religion-based oppres­sion” of LGBT people but there was very little about the reli­gious basis of that oppres­sion. In that respect, I found the film com­pared quite unfa­vour­ably with Daniel Karslake’s For the Bible Tells Me So (review), which even used some of the same footage of the demon­stra­tions at Focus on the Family’s headquar­ters. That film also man­aged to fea­ture some LGBT fam­ilies in a sens­itive way, and I’d hoped that SoleJourney might have built upon the earlier film. Instead, I don’t think it will have much appeal to anyone who doesn’t already believe in what Soulforce is doing.

Official site of the film

6/10(6/10)

Tagged as: christianity, faith, homosexuality, humanrights, religion

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