18TH MELBOURNE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL 2008
The 18th annual Melbourne Queer Film Festival screens in Melbourne, from 5 March – 16 March 2008, with the Opening Night attraction being the premiere screening of Breakfast With Scot, at the Astor Theatre. All other sessions and the closing night will be held at Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). The Festival offers an eclectic choice of films over ten days including 38 feature films and 27 documentaries and over 10 feature film Australian premiers.
Check cinema guides for screening dates and details, or visit: www.melbournequeerfilm.com.au
Our reviewers will bring updated reviews and news during what has become the largest bent film festival in Australia. Our reviewers include EMMA FLANAGAN (EF), PETER KRAUSZ (PK), PETER MALONE (PM).
Last Updated March 6, 2008
BREAKFAST WITH SCOT. The opening night film of the festival turns out to be an amusing morality tale about being yourself. The film centres on two gay men, one an ex-hockey playing sports commentator (played by Tim Cavanagh, who was in Ed), and the other a lawyer (played by Ben Shenkman, who was in Pi and Angels In America), who are forced to look after an 11 year old boy. It seems that Shenkman’s brother, played by Colin Cunningham, refuses to look after the boy following the tragic death of his wife (the boy’s mother). What the two men discover is that Scot (played by Noah Bernett) fits a gay stereotype: very effeminate, sings show-tunes, dresses up in colourful outfits etc.. and this causes both Scot and the two men a number of problems. However, this Canadian comedy never turns nasty (as one might expect, especially in a school situation), and indeed is a sweet film about family, being male, and being who you really are. The ex-hockey player in particular is uncomfortable with Scot’s personality, and tries to transform him into a real man, which in turn says something about the sportsman’s own attitude to being gay in public and the appropriate behaviour for a male. Laurie Lynd directs this film briskly and efficiently, with a clever script from Sean Rycraft, who adapted the Michael Downing novel. The film also treats the central relationship in a very matter of fact way, never resorting to melodrama or over-statement, and concludes in a harmonious, accepting way, reflecting the underlying messages of the story. Recommended, especially as a counterpoint to Billy Elliot. (PK)
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. Oscar Wilde’s only novel has been filmed a number of times in various countries, with the essential theme of the corruption of the soul leading to the infamous painting that ages while Dorian himself remains young. This morality tale, as fashioned by Wilde, was regarded as a clarion call against the manifestations of capitalism and hedonism, and was a salutary lesson for anyone tempted by the easy life, no matter how that was achieved.
The silent versions in the 1910s focused on the simple horror aspects of the tale, leading to the more layered approaches taken by three versions in particular. In 1945, Albert Lewin directed a sumptuous b/w production, which featured technicolour sequences of the Dorian Gray painting to startling effect. Hurd Hatfield played the obsessed hedonist in a stylish, over-the-top fashion. A telemovie in 1973, directed by Glenn Jordan, featured Shane Briant as the eponymous anti-hero in a bland but reverential adaptation. In 2004, a rarely seen low budget version by David Rosenbaum, and starring Josh Duhamel, emphasized again the horror aspects of the story, but added little else.
Now we have a gay reconceptualization of the story by Duncan Roy (who directed aka), using split screen and multi-screen technology with a stronger sexual element, to highlight the spiritual corruption of Gray. David Gallagher plays the title role as the haunted aesthete whose sexuality becomes more fluid as he succumbs to temptation and the desire to stay young, no matter what. Shot on HD Video, the film becomes an interesting, if somewhat repetitive, version of Wilde’s story, with the character’s moral degradation emphasized by the script.
If at times the film feels like it is over-reaching its low budget scope, it nevertheless succeeds to a certain extent in creating a mood that leads to its well prepared denouement. Some of the acting is a little rough and ready at times, and indicates that the film was shot quickly, yet there is a cohesive vision in the direction that partially overcomes this. An unusual contemporary revisioning of the Wilde story that deserves to be seen during the festival. (PK)
TIED HANDS. This Israeli film by Dan Wolman, featured at the Israeli Film Festival last year, and was one of the most popular films at that festival for its emotional power and attitude towards acceptance and tolerance. Veteran Israeli actress Gila Almagor plays the mother of a gay son who is dying of AIDS. As she tries to come to terms with his life choices, including his work as a dancer, she eventually tries anything she can to ameliorate his painful existence, including finding marijuana to assuage the pain. This journey takes her to the darker aspects of Israeli underground life, leading to her understanding of her son’s life and the more unsavoury aspects of contemporary life from which she has been largely shielded. The film pulls no punches in depicting this story, and is all the more powerful because of that. Ido Tadmore does a remarkable job too in depicting the dying son as both a victim and creator of his own fate. The touching final scenes between mother and son transcend the usual melodramatic catharses endemic to such stories, and indeed are very well directed by Wolman. (PK)
ANGER ME. Kenneth Anger was enamoured by films from a very early age, and started making his own experimental films at the age of 9. His gay themed homo-erotic stories were quite outrageous for many audiences in the 1940s and 1950s, but his films - such as Fireworks (47), Scorpio Rising (63) - became cult classics as they explored the nether worlds of sexuality, underground gangs, and iconic imagery. This documentary, featuring Anger, by Elio Gelmini, is a Canadian film about his life, films and in many cases fabricated history of his involvement with the cinema and film-making.
He states he was influnced by everyone from D.W.Griffith, to Jean Cocteau, to Fellini, and even Mick Jagger, and there are some actual interviews with some of these people to support those contentions. Yet Anger, who was 79 when the documentary was filmed, also claims to have appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (35) (a claim not supported by the facts) and fashioned a re-edited version of Eisenstein’s Que Viva Mexico (32), where no such versions exist.
Nevertheless, film buffs will appreciate this look at the film industry from Anger’s perspective during his life, as well as the many film clips, interviews and stills. Of course, Anger is now best known for writing those two scandal-laced film books about the excesses of Hollywood: Hollywood Babylon. An enjoyably presented and well-made documentary, but do not necessarily believe everything Anger states. (PK)
SATURN IN OPPOSITION is not exactly a feel-good movie, but it is all about love. It is an ensemble piece, which revolves around a gay couple and their friends, whom the couple frequently invite to dinner at their modern apartment.
The characters represent various types of relationships: Davide (Pierfrancesco Favino) is a successful writer, his partner Lorenzo (Luca Argentero) is an architect; mirroring this are Antonio (Stefano Accorsi) and Angelica (Margherita Buy) in the traditional “straight” relationship; there is failed love in Davide’s ex-partner, Sergio (Ennio Fantastichini) and never-truly-been-in-love in Roberta (Ambra Angiolini). Along with these is the single newcomer Paolo (Michaelangelo Tommaso) and Davide’s busybody friend Neval (Serra Yilmaz) with her timid husband (Filippo Timi).
Italo-Turnkish creenwriter/director Ferzan Ozpetek examines each of these relationships in turn, and then throws at the group a tragedy which befalls one of its members. It is the reaction to this misfortune which Ozpetek uses to analyse the meaning or purpose of the group, what it is that brought them together in the first place, and what is it is that will stop them becoming self-absorbed individually, and become supportive of the other group members.
It is an intriguing group that Ozpetek has constructed, which for the most part rings true as a collection of people with enough common interests to want to spend time together; they are connected through long-past university, or current work. They are a collection of outsiders from the mainstream of Italian urban life – one is a Turkish immigrant, two are gay, another holds herself back from long-term relationships, finding solace in cocaine. One is trying to establish whether he prefers women or men, while another is clearly far less educated than the others and is thus mostly on the outer from the group itself, perhaps reflecting the what might be a mainstream Italian or Turkish view of this group of minorities.
I am not sure exactly what the film’s title refers to: perhaps it alludes to the group of friends that surrounds Davide and Lorenzo, the central relationship in the group; maybe it refers to the nature of the group itself, circling, but never quite entering, the atmosphere of the greater mass of the city’s population; Sergio is certainly saturnine as the gloomy ex-lover, who has never gotten over his break-up with Davide.
While the story examines the fall-out from a tragedy, and how the group is affected by it, it goes further, and looks at how gay people deal with such a situation, when they do not have a traditional husband-wife-children domestic set-up. There is the issue of their parents, who, in this case, have disowned at least one of the group – how do you deal with that? Whom do you turn to in times of crisis? How do you divvy up things that belong to two partners with unequal incomes? I think that that is the real focus of the tale, which is far better handled than the examination of group’s responses to tragedy, which was rather uneven.
The film looks good – apparently Luca Argentero is a former member of Big Brother - and has an appealing musical score, a mixture of traditional and modern music. Performances are spot-on, with Ambra Angiolini having won the David di Donatello Award last year for Best Supporting Actress. As well as the urban scenes, there are locations at a beautiful coastal villa. (EF)
SATURN IN OPPOSITION. Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek, best known for his Italian films: Ignorant Fairies (01) and Facing Windows (03), returns to a popular theme of family, friends and tragedy, with this film. A group of friends regularly gathers for a dinner party to share their experiences, romances, careers, and friendships. A number of relationships feature in the film, including the central one of a loving, gay relationship between two men that turns to tragedy when one of them falls into a coma. As they all discuss their feelings about this tragic situation while visiting the hospital, their own fears, insecurities and life concerns are gradually revealed, which eventually reveal the close bond they all have with one another.
The film, directed as a melodrama along the lines of Douglas Sirk and Pedro Almodovar, successfully weaves the various stories together as they all face the possibility of the death of the central character. Italian contemporary society is well represented in this tale, with messages of tolerance and acceptance a vital part of the narrative. If at times the film seems a little hysterical, that can be forgiven for its attitude towards our natural, emotional reactions to life’s vicissitudes.
Saturn In Opposition screened at the Italian Film Festival last year, and makes a welcome re-appearance at this festival. (PK)
LES TEMOINS/THE WITNESSES. The AIDS epidemic in the 1980s has been explored in a number of films, including the ground-breaking Longtime Companion (90), and the elaborate and well-researched telemovie And The Band Played On (93). Andre Techine, the French director of such films as Wild Reeds (94), which explored the sexuality and coming of age of a young man in the 1960s, and I Don’t Kiss (91), also a gay themed film about an innocent lad discovering the temptations of the big city, has fashioned another compelling gay-themed film in The Witnesses.
Set in the 1980s, the film deals with the relationships between: an estranged married couple (Emmanuelle Beart and Sami Bouajila) with a child, she is a writer while he is a police officer; and a young gay male (Johan Libereau), his opera singer sister (Julie Depardieu) and his friendship with a gay doctor (Michel Blanc). This melting pot of characters is drawn together through the relationship between the gay character and the police officer, which becomes a sexual one. The film explores the consequences of these relationships, and then sharpens the narrative by introducing the spectre of AIDS and the impact that has on the young man and the others.
This is another compelling, deeply humanistic film from Techine, where sexuality strongly inhabits the story, and moral and personal decisions impact on everyone around. The film also clearly presents, in line with the two other American films from the 90s mentioned in this review, the devastating impact the new illness of AIDS had on the community, and the issues the medical profession faced in trying to come to grips with it. Another fine film from a director whose films, largely gay-themed, are provocative and layered. (PK)
HA-BUAH/THE BUBBLE. The tensions between Palestinians and Israelis, and the security issues that are part of this fraught situation, forms an essential part of Eytan Fox’s latest film, set largely in Tel Aviv and Nablus. The core of the film is the relationship between an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian, and the impact their sexual relationship has on family and friends. In particular, the homophobia endemic in the culture serves as a fundamental barrier to any possible relationship. Ohad Knoller plays the Israeli soldier who discovers that his sexuality, and the “forbidden” relationship with a Palestinian (played by Yousef Sweid), leads to consequences out of both of their control. What the film also explores, is the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli guards, and the illegal nature of their presence in the country. The motivation for suicide bombings become part of the narrative when the Palestinian character attends his sister’s wedding, and a tragic incident occurs.
This is a compelling film from Fox, whose previous films (Yossi & Yaegar 02, and Walk On Water 04) also explored homosexuality in a cultural context that frowned on such feelings. He also, with co-writer Gal Uchovsky, places these concerns in the context of the social and political forces operating at the time. Hence in this case, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict forms an important counterpoint to the central relationship. Shot in luminous wide-screen, with a great feel for both the city and the more remote outposts, Fox’s film is above all a humanistic plea for tolerance and freedom. There is a special appearance by noted Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi, who is shown in a scene from the play Bent; a dramatic sequence clearly incorporated into the film to demonstrate the levels of intolerance existing in history, which may not have changed. The film played last year at the Israeli Film Festival, so has a welcome re-appearance in this festival. (PK)