MELBOURNE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL 2009
The 19th Melbourne Queer Film Festival takes place at ACMI Cinemas from 18 March to 30 March, 2009. Over 100 features and shorts are being screened at what has become the largest Queer film festival in Australia.
PATRIK 1.5
This is an up-beat, crowd-pleasing Swedish film, written and directed by Ella Lemhagen, based on a Michael Druker play, about a gay couple seeking to adopt a baby. After all the approvals had been granted they discover that their adopted son, Patrik, aged 18 months, is due to a typo, a 15 year old rebellious teenager with a criminal record. To add insult to injury, this teenage Patrik is homophobic and hates living with these two 'homos'. What emerges is a well written and acted piece about tolerance and family, with Gustav Skarsgard (son of Stellan) and Torkel Petersson playing the married gay couple who discover more about themselves and their relationship through trying to cope with this difficult young man. There is a strong satiric depiction of their average middle class neighborhood, its straight-laced inhabitants, and the somewhat patronizing attitudes to gay life exhibited by these neighbours. The film does not shirk from the 'concerns' the community has about a gay couple, and also about a teenage boy in this household, but the script focuses on the positives, as well as the healing power, this family set-up reinforces. There are a few dramatic moments that test all the characters' resolve, but Patrik himself, played by Thomas Ljungman, is given a character that can grow out of his homophobia, and develop from his unpleasant background, with ways to move forward from it. Gustav's character, a doctor, is the key to the positive developments in the story and the ultimately satisfying outcomes for all concerned. Perhaps the film does wear its heart on its sleeve, and does paper over some of the issues raised in the plot, but is a winning film nonetheless. Recommended. (Peter Krausz)
JERUSALEM IS PROUD TO PRESENT
Israeli filmmaker wrote and directed this documentary about the attempts made to stage the first World Pride march in Jerusalem in 2006. The film documents the events that lead up the march and the way that various religious bodies: Orthodox Jews, Muslims and other conservatives, derailed that event. Nitzan is given the opportunity to cover a number of views through the interviews he conducts, but it is clear that the prevailing orthodoxy of the local council and the Knesset would mean that the public display of gay lifestyle was anathema to many fundamentalist views. Morgan Spurlock encountered similar hostility from a group of orthodox Jews in his film 'Where in the World is Osama Bin-Laden' (07), but for different reasons. This is a well-filmed, if slightly subjective, view of these events, and provides an insight into the oppositional forces occurring in Jerusalem, a city less contemporary in its worldview compared with Tel Aviv or Haifa. Recommended. (Peter Krausz)
WERE THE WORLD MINE
This year's opening night film turns out to be a curious hybrid of teenage fantasy and sexual desire, clearly influenced by High School Musical 06. Tanner Cohen plays a gay teenager in an all boys school, who is ostracized by the jocks, and who is trying to deal with his mother's unhappiness at needing to find work due to her husband's departure. The drama teacher, who is at loggerheads in the school with the sports culture and physical education teachers, introduces a compulsory play in which the class must participate in order to get enough credits to graduate. Recognizing the gay teenager's unpleasant situation she sets the Shakespearean play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and from there the reality and fantasy of the situation collide, with Tanner sprinkling some fairydust which causes the other students to fall in love with whoever they are with at the time. Hence a number of same sex relationships, shown quite chastely through kissing scenes, emerge leading to all sorts of compromising situations. This film is a slightly uneasy combination of musical, drama and fantasy, which as clear messages of tolerance and acceptance, presented in a heightened reality format. The director, Tom Gustafson, appears to hold back on his ideas, and even the climactic stage presentation seems muted and reticent. The film certainly has crowd-pleasing aspects to it, especially in reducing the jocks to prancing effeminate stereotypes, but I wondered at who the real audience for this film may be, due to its compromises in the narrative. There is also a strong air of unbelievability to the central gay romance and the story resolution. The drama teacher (played by Wendy Robie) is probably the most interesting character, while far too much time is spent on Tanner's somewhat neurotic mother. The film was reviewed in a cinema as a digital projection (with washed out colours and visuals) with distorted sound. Maybe another viewing under better circumstances would modify the review. (Peter Krausz)
SAVE ME
One of the most interesting gay-themed films I have seen for quite a while is this modest, but well scripted and performed film about a drug-addicted gay hustler who is brought to a religious residential retreat in the US. Chad Allen, who also plays the lead role in the film, co-produced this adaptation of a Craig Chester story, written by Robert Desiderio and directed by Robert Cary. This retreat tries to change homosexual men into heterosexuals by lengthy discussions, counselling sessions, and removal of all temptations and addictions. However, Judith Light and her husband run this Church-funded retreat in a largely low-key evangelical manner, never resorting to the proselytizing approach that is commonly assumed in these 'conversion' hostels, and everyone is there voluntarily. Allen starts to form an attraction with fellow in-mate Robert Gant, and throughout the film we learn about the attitudes the other men have to being gay, changing, and their natural inclinations. I was impressed with the richly layered nature of the narrative, the failure to clearly depict any villains, and the subtle approach to character background and motivation, as well as religious belief. A good example of a low budget film with a high quality script. Highly recommended. (Peter Krausz)