Movies
Film: As gay as it gets
Queer content more often found on the indie circuit in risk-averse Hollywood
Now that the Oscars are over, this spring offers LGBT film fans the chance to catch some independent films in theatrical release, some queer films sprinkled throughout the schedules of local film festivals and some gay favorites in mainstream fare.
āYossiā (2012), a popular offering at last yearās Reel Affirmations, is a sequel to the surprise gay indie hit Yossi and Jagger (2002). In the first movie, Yossi Guttman is a commander in the Israeli army stationed on the Lebanon border. When Lior joins the unit as Yossiās second-in-command, the two begin a passionate but secret affair which ends when Lior (who is called Jagger because he has āthe moves like Jaggerā) is killed in an ill-considered skirmish.
āYossiā picks up the action 10 years later. Yossi is now Dr. Guttman, a successful cardiologist. But, despite his professional achievements, he remains in an emotional and social fog. His depression begins to lift, however, when he encounters a group of rowdy young soldiers.
āYossiā is helmed by gay director Eytan Fox, who has been a key player in both the fight for gay and lesbian rights in Israel and the renaissance of Israeli film. The strong cast is led award-winning Israeli actor Ohad Knoller, who amazingly brings Yossiās stupor to vivid life, offering a rich and nuanced portrayal of a man frozen in place, but bravely trying to move forward. In Hebrew, with English subtitles. Opens March 8 at the Landmark E Street Cinema.
āLet My People Go!ā (2011), which played to a sell-out crowd at the Jewish Film Festival, is a semi-autobiographical romantic farce by queer French filmmaker Mikael Buch. The movie stars the talented Nicolas Maury as the directorās alter ego, Rueben, a French man working as a mailman in Finland and living with his sexy Nordic boyfriend Teemu.
Rueben is unexpectedly forced to flee his idyllic Scandinavian life and return to his zany Jewish family in France: his philandering father, his long-suffering mother (played by Almodovar goddess Carmen Maura from āWomen on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdownā), his uptight and upright brother, and his sister who is married to a fading TV star. After a series of zany misadventures including seductions, fist-fights and fainting spells, the family finally settles down for a delayed Passover Seder. In French and Finnish, with English subtitles. Opens March 15 at the West End Cinema.
A very different road trip is the subject of Walter Sallesā adaptation of Jack Kerouacās classic Beat novel, āOn the Roadā (2012). Like the novel, the movie is a thinly veiled recreation of the famous cross-country road trip taken by Kerouac with his friend Neal Cassady and Cassadyās girlfriend LuAnne Henderson. Sam Riley plays Kerouacās alter ego Sal Paradise and Garrett Hedlund plays the charismatic Dean Moriarty (based on Cassady). Kristen Stewart appears as Moriartyās girlfriend Marylou and Viggo Mortenson and Tom Sturridge are featured as characters based on William S. Burroughs (author of āNaked Lunchā) and Allen Ginsburg (the openly gay poet who wrote āHowlā).
Reunited with screenwriter Jose Rivera (the two worked together on āThe Motorcycle Diaries,ā a road movie inspired by the life of Che Guevara), Salles unflinchingly recreates the artistic, philosophical and sexual awakening of Paradise. The film combines a celebration of the Beat writers and the women and gay men who were part of their world along with an understanding of the misogyny and homophobia that ultimately underscored much of their work. The movie includes explicit shots of nonconforming sex (a graphic anal scene between Hedlund and Steve Buscemi and a scene where Stewart simultaneously pleasures both Hedlund and Riley), but the focus remains on the sexual liberties taken by the straight white writers.
āOn the Roadā finally opens in D.C. on March 22 at Landmark E Street Cinema.
The 2013 D.C. Independent Film Festival runs March 6-10 and includes films, seminars and master classes that celebrate international independent movies. This yearās offerings include āA Cureā by Matthew Herbertz, a short film about Sarah, a young girl who is pulled out of school and is forced to undergo reparative therapy when her mother finds out her sexual interest in other girls. It screens March 9 at the U.S. Navy Heritage Center at the Archives Metro Station. For more information, go to dciff-indie.org/.
Two mainstream films that are sure to gather sizeable gay and lesbian audiences are āOz the Great and Powerfulā (March 8) and āThe Great Gatsbyā (May 10). āOzā is a prequel to popular books by L. Frank Baum and stars the category-defying James Franco as a carnival magician who arrives in a fantasy land and must use his wits to stay ahead of three witches (Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis) who have their sights on him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXAB2A8iHLE
Gay favorite Baz Luhrmann (āMoulin Rouge,ā āShakespeareās R&Jā) returns to the big screen with his 3-D adaptation of the classic American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan as the doomed lovers and Tobey Maguire as the enigmatic narrator Nick Carraway. The troubled movie was pulled from a December 2012 release, but audiences may be won over by Catherine Martinās opulent design palette.
Movies
Neo-noir āFemmeā offers sexy, intense revenge fantasy
A work of real and thrilling cinematic vision
They say ārevenge is sweet,ā and it must be true. Why else would so many of our popular stories, dating all the way back to āMedeaā and beyond, be focused on the idea of getting āevenā with the people who have done us wrong?
Itās a concept with obvious appeal for anyone who has felt unjustly used by the world ā or, more accurately, by the people in it ā but that has particular resonance, perhaps, for modern queer audiences, long used to being relegated to the status of āvictimā in the narratives we see on our screens. In āFemmeā ā the new UK indie thriller helmed by first-time feature directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, now in limited theatrical release and expanding wider over the next two weeks ā it provides the irresistible hook for a gripping tale of calculated vengeance in the face of anti-queer violence. Like the best of such stories, however, itās as much a cautionary tale as it is a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Set in London, it centers on Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), aka Aphrodite Banks, a popular drag performer in the cityās queer club scene who, after a performance one night, steps out in full costume to buy a pack of cigarettes and becomes the victim of a traumatic āgay bashingā incident at the hands of a young man goaded to violence by a thuggish gang of friends. Months later, though heās recovered from his physical injuries, he is still deeply affected by the inner scars that linger. Robbed of the confidence that allowed him to perform, heās withdrawn into a reclusive life, until concern from his friends and housemates prompts him to finally venture out into the world for a night of cruising at a gay sauna ā where he encounters his bully doing the same thing.
Unrecognizable and anonymously masculine out of his drag persona, Jules finds himself beginning a dangerous and duplicitous game in which he plans to āoutā his former attacker ā whose name, as he learns, is Preston (George MacKay) ā in the most humiliating way possible. As his scheme begins to play out, however, he encounters an obstacle: in getting to know the closeted Preston, he is surprised to discover not only empathy for someone living their life in terrified camouflage, but a mutual attraction that develops despite the horrific history between them.
Framed as a self-described āneo-noirā story, a designation that implies a certain flavor of moral ambiguity as much as it does a tense and shadowy tale of intrigue or a psychologically complex tone, itās a movie that relies heavily on style in order to sell its conceptual premise. Realistically, we might question the boldness that permits our protagonist to enact such a potentially hazardous scheme, but in the context of its genre trappings we are lulled into accepting it. And while most of us are likely ājadedā enough to question the possibility of tenderness between its two leading characters, the accepted conceits of the film noir form are enough to sell it to us ā or at least allow us to grapple with it alongside Jules, whose righteously Machiavellian master plan is threatened by the feelings he ācatchesā in spite of himself.
That, of course, is part of the whole point. āFemme,ā though it establishes itself by virtue of its very title as a testament to the struggle to āpassā for straight in a world that places a value judgment on perceived adherence to a strict norm for gender and sexuality, hinges on the idea that such things arenāt quite as clear-cut as we want to make them. Despite the black-and-white certainty we cling to when it comes to the subject of abusive or toxic relationships, thereās an emotional component that can only be ignored or dismissed at our peril, and even our most resolute intentions can be undermined by the shades of gray we discover in our hearts.
Freeman and Ng ā who also wrote the screenplay, adapting their own BAFTA-nominated short film from 2021 (starring Harris Dickinson and Paapa Essiedu) into a feature-length expansion ā seem bent on challenging our snap judgments, on forcing us to sympathize with our oppressors by showing us the ways in which they, too, are prevented from living a fully authentic life by the expectations of their cultural environment. Even more challenging for many modern audiences, perhaps, may be the unavoidable observation that, in enacting his plan of revenge, Jules crosses the line between being a victim and being a victimizer ā a fine point that may trigger uncomfortable implications in a social environment that has become marked by divisive moral constructs and hardline ethical posturing.
Before we scare you off with discussion of high-concept themes and āculture warā rhetoric, however, itās crucial to bring up the elements that lift āFemmeā above and beyond the level of so many such narrative films and makes it a somewhat unexpectedly potent piece of cinematic storytelling ā and all of them have to do with the skill and intention behind it.
As to the former, the movieās first-time directors manage a remarkable debut, steeping their film in moody, genre-appropriate visuals and murky morality. They pave a path beyond the easy assessments proscribed for us by conventional thinking, and force us to follow our sympathies into a disquieting confrontation between what we āknowā as right and what we feel as true; at the same time, they push back against any natural sentimentality we might have about the situation, stressing the toxicity of the relationship in the middle of their film, the ironically-reversed insincerity of its dynamic ā and, perhaps most importantly, the reality of the defining circumstances around it. While we might find ourselves longing for a happier resolution than the one we expect, the film makes no pretense that these two men might overcome the deep denial and traumatic associations ā not to mention the calculated lack of honesty on the side of its de facto protagonist, to achieve some kind of āhappy endingā between themselves. Nevertheless, we hope for it, in spite of ourselves.
That delicate dynamic works largely because of the movieās lead actors. Both Stewart-Jarrett (āCandymanā) and MacKay (āPrideā, ā1917ā) deliver fully invested, utterly relatable performances, finding the emotional truth behind their interactions with as much palpable authenticity as they bring to the chemistry between them. They force us to abandon our preconceived ideas about each character by finding the human presence behind them, and it makes the storyās final outcome feel as heartbreaking as it does inevitable.
As for intention, āFemmeā ā which premiered at last yearās Berlin International Film Festival and went on to gather acclaim across the international film fest circuit ā might be a little hard to take for the easily triggered, we wonāt deny it. Still, itās a work of real and thrilling cinematic vision that goes beyond easy morality to highlight the tragedy that comes from being forced to live behind a mask for the sake of societal acceptance. Itās also exciting, smart, and unexpectedly sexy ā all of which make it a highly- recommended addition to your watchlist.
Editor’s note: Jack Morningstar attended SXSW.
Based on Mason Deaver’s novel, “I Wish You All the Best” follows Ben DeBacker (Corey Fogelmanis), a nonbinary teen who is thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister and her husband.
The film premiered at SXSW last week and stars Corey Fogelmanis, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Alexandra Daddario and Cole Sprouse, Lena Dunham and was produced by Matt Kaplan and Tommy Dorfman. In addition to directing and producing, Dorfman also adapted the screenplay.
āI had never read a book that centered on an experience that mirrored mine so vividly ā just being a queer kid from the South ā so I immediately was interested in adapting it and was putting myself up for that,ā she said.
The heartwarming film brings awareness to the plight of LGBTQ kids who grow up in conservative families and communities, while also emphasizing that, as Dorfman noted, āsafety can be found in many places.ā In this case, the main protagonist, Ben, finds refuge in their friendship with Nathan. Fogelmanis, who plays Ben, explains that “together they have so many first-time experiences. Learning to let your walls down with someone that is a stranger, or that you don’t have a biological bond with is really scary. And then just to see all the stuff that comes up and have that person still accept you is just the greatest thing for Ben.ā
Fogelmanis and Gutierrez-Riley were obvious choices for the roles of Ben and Nathan.
āIt was really clear to me from a filmmaker perspective. There were a couple of people for each role that I was interested in and enjoyed working with, but Fogelmanis, from that first tape to the last chemistry read made it so clear who Ben was, who Ben is, and who Ben could be. Miles, who plays Nathan, is so amazing as well,ā Fogelmanis added. āIt was really effortless in a way. Reading Tommy’s words was super easy to find my way into.ā
Dorfman found it particularly easy to work with Gutierrez-Riley as well since they attended the same acting program at Fordham University.
āI remember when I was working with Miles in the audition process, I was like, oh, I know how to talk to you. That’s huge. It helped me as a first-time director,ā she said.
Dorfman wanted to be careful ānot fall into the trap of dramatizing Benās gender or coming out too much. It is important to remember that viewing people solely through the lens of their gender or sexuality diminishes their vast and complex humanity. For instance, my life extends beyond my trans identity. I’m an artist, a wife, a mother to two dogs, a sister to four siblings, an avid reader of classic literature, 10 years sober, have ADHD, enjoy arranging flowers and charming tableware, to name a few things.ā
āSimilarly, my film’s protagonist, Ben, doesn’t have an identity exclusive to being a queer teenager. Although their coming out experience is crucial and worth exploring, an obvious jumping-off point in my film, it’s what happens after they’re able to open up that inspired me to make ‘I Wish You All The Best,’ Dorfman added. “My film examines the discomfort of being seventeen, falling in love with a classmate, forming friendships, finding a voice through painting and self-expression, learning to love and be loved, navigating anxiety and depression, and coping with the pressures of growing up. These are universal and very human experiences that shape Ben beyond the limits of representation or perception.ā
Dorfman describes being one of the few openly transgender directors as āan honor and a disappointment.ā She added, āI wish there were more of us, but there will be. It’s exciting, though, to be part of this next generation of creators and filmmakers entering this space and telling more human experiences.ā
Movies
Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells want to adopt baby in ‘I Don’t Understand You’
Film premiered at SXSW in Austin
Editor’s note: Jack Morningstar attended SXSW in Austin, Texas.
“I Don’t Understand You” focuses on a couple whose romantic Italian getaway devolves into bloody chaos while they prepare to adopt their first child.Ā
The film, while veering into hilariously gruesome hijinks, tells the story of a gay couple who is willing to kill for a chance at fatherhood. It sheds light on the hurdles that same-sex couples often go through in the adoption process: Financial burdens, time constraints, fraud, and in this case, a rural Italian family.
The film premiered last weekend at SXSW in Austin and stars Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells along with Nunzia Schiano, Morgan Spector and Eleonora Romandini. It was written and directed by Brian Crano and David Craig, who are married. They sourced inspiration from their own adoption struggles and an Italian vacay gone wrong.
āWe were about to leave for Italy when we found out that we had matched with a birth mother and our son would be born in about six weeks,ā said Crano.
According to Craig, the trip was tense and it culminated in their car getting stuck in a ditch on their way to an anniversary dinner.
āWe ended up at an old ladyās house after she rescued us in her Fiat. Her family cooked us a meal and we stayed up drinking with them until 3 a.m., not understanding a word they were saying,ā he said.
Without spoiling anything, the couple in the movie go to absurd lengths to ensure that their adoption goes through. Craig explained that the theme of the movie was “what would you do for your kid.”Ā
“We were three years into our own journey at the time and realized we would literally do anything to make that dream a reality. Itās really a love letter to our son,ā he said.
The film is hard to relegate to a single genre.
āWhen conceiving the story, we saw it as different parts ā romantic comedy, horror movie, murder play ā but I think by bringing in Nick and Andrew that blend actually became much more of an organic mix where the comedy sustained throughout. They elevated it in a more elegant fashion,ā said Craig.
“I Donāt Understand You”was produced by Pinky Promise, a women-led production company with the mission to elevate diverse voices in their storytelling. Kara Durrett, Pinky Promiseās current president was a champion of this script from the beginning. Founder Jessamine Burgum recounts that when Durrett was onboarding, she said āIf you donāt get [“I Donāt Understand You”] I donāt know if this is going to work.ā
It ultimately became one of the first projects Burgum and Durrett collaborated on.Ā
Kroll and Rannellsā chemistry carried the film.
āThere was a desire to work with each of them because they had both separately been in such amazing comedian teams ā like Andrew with Josh Gad and Nick with John Mulaney. Nick and Andrewās characters are in almost every scene of the movie together, so they needed to be adept to basically doing a shared performance. There was no one more well-positioned to do this as naturally as possible,ā said Crano.
Their characters are easy to root for, yet also deeply flawed.
āA big thing we wanted to do with this movie, and with all of our work in telling stories, is avoid telling a cliched gay trauma film. Weāve never ascribed to the idea that there is a subcategory to film that is LGBTQ, rather ā movies are for everyone. We want to make a movie where gay characters are flawed, not for being gay, but because of who they are. They can be villains, but they are our protagonists,ā said Craig.
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