LGBT

Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013)

André Crous

la-vie-d-adeleFrance
3*

Director:
Abdellatif Kechiche
Screenwriter:
Ghalia Lacroix
Director of Photography:
Sofian El Fani

Running time: 175 minutes

Original title: La vie d’Adèle – Chapitres 1 & 2

There is nothing subtle about Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Colour. The main character, Adèle, spends most of the film in tears, always desperately clinging to an ideal that is based on very little except naïve lust, and even though at first she is successful, her constant bouts of waterworks never endear her to the audience, who in a three-hour film certainly need more to hold on to.

This winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, centred on the relationship between a high-school girl, Adèle, and a slightly older student at the Academy of Fine Arts with blue hair, Emma, may have been pushing the envelope in France at a time when the issue of same-sex marriage was at its most polarising. But even if you didn’t know the film was directed by a man, it is very obvious from the presentation of the material that he finds the world of lesbians (and women, in general) rather peculiar, and it is a terrible shame that the mere instance of women kissing becomes something of a focal point for the camera, pretending that it is somehow unusual.

The clearest example of this approach is the eventful evening when Adèle meets Emma, as she first goes with her best friend to a gay bar — and in another moment of “revelation”, we see him kissing another man, indicating that (yes!) he is gay — and then strolls around the corner to a lesbian bar, where every second couple is making out in a seemingly orgiastic atmosphere that leaves little to the imagination and suggests that any man or woman hanging out in a gay bar will likely spend most of their time making out with random strangers. This is an incredibly simplistic depiction and may very well support many people’s view that homosexuality is the “other”, as these bars seem to have very little in common with your average “straight” bar. It is not just the background that is teeming with loose-lipped lesbians, but the camera makes a concerted effort to swing around from one couple to the other, its breath taken away by every new make-out session it notices.

This meeting between the two girls is like the realisation of a fantasy: Kechiche, who will eventually present a sex scene in almost its full duration, making sure to show close-ups of genitals being licked and sphincters being penetrated, and later on show Adèle taking a shower for no narrative reason whatsoever, visibly enjoys having all these women make out onscreen. There is little tension, unlike what Adèle must be feeling (this is her first time hooking up with someone who is a complete stranger), and therefore we don’t experience the event through her eyes, which is another shame. But this meeting is also the realisation of Adèle’s fantasy, who had actually noticed Emma on the street once and masturbated very loudly thinking of her one night at home.

“Chapters 1 & 2” in the title can refer to any number of things, as the film covers a lot of time in an unconventional way. There are no fade-outs or dissolves, only cuts, and therefore our usual expectation that time changes are signalled more visibly is not met by Kechiche. The most likely conclusion we can draw is that there was life before and life after Emma. From the outset, we can see that Adèle is not exactly confused about her sexuality. She keeps it a secret, she makes up convoluted excuses when confronted by her circle of friends, and she doesn’t even tell her best friend, Valentin, who is gay, that she likes girls, but she openly stares at Emma when she sees her on the street for the first time. But when Adèle kisses another girl from her class, she becomes so hysterically happy and needy, it’s embarrassing to watch, and we fear the same would eventually be true if she ever met Emma — and it happens exactly as we expect.

Kechiche has to be given credit from the scenes in high school, however. As he showed in his marvellous Games of Love and Chance (L’esquive), he likes the French author Pierre de Marivaux (also discussed here at length), and he knows how to direct teenagers to come across as passionate and extremely engaging. The first hour of Blue is the Warmest Colour has some of the best scenes, including the expected outrage from Adèle’s friends who confront her about her spending time with such the blue-haired Emma who they say looks like a boy. Verbal combat in Kechiche’s films is one of his finest skills as a director.

But the constant skips in time, sometimes a few months, sometimes a few years, does great damage to the development of Adèle’s character, not only because she seems to develop very little, but also because scenes that are required have simply been omitted. The scene of Emma at Adèle’s parents’ house underscores Adèle’s secrecy about her sexuality towards her own parents (in contrast with an earlier scene at the house of Emma’s very accepting parents), and yet Adèle has no “coming out”, which is truly regrettable and makes us wonder whether she ever tells them. As their only child, this silence and the lack of communication leave a very bad taste in the mouth.

The English title, which actually comes from the French title of the graphic novel by Julie Maroh that the film is based on, Le Bleu est une couleur chaude, is made visible in most of the scenes in the film, as they usually contain a blue object, more often than not a piece of clothing. In the French flag, blue is the colour of freedom, but whether or not Adèle ever finds the same kind of freedom Emma clearly has is an open question that the film refuses to answer. As far as we can tell, Adèle remains a desperate, lachrymose mess up until the end.

Not worthy of the hype it has received as a result of its award at Cannes and the much talked-about graphic scenes between actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, Blue is the Warmest Colour is flawed because it is made by someone who is more interested in titillating the audience and himself than in telling the compelling story of a woman on the verge, pushed there by her own needs and a refusal to share her life with anyone except Emma, someone who, most significantly, is comfortable in her skin. Were it not for the all-too-rare instance of verbal warfare, handled with aplomb by Kechiche, this may very well have been a completely forgettable film.

Hawaii (2013)

André Crous

Hawaii poster2Argentina
4*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 101 minutes

It’s difficult to imagine Marco Berger making a winter movie.

From the beautiful sunset of one of his first short films, The Watch, to the evergreen bubble of lush gardens in rural Argentina that is a constant metaphor for the budding relationship in Hawaii, his films have always been optimistic about the possibility of finding love, or at least of finding someone. That possibility, however, is not without its ups and downs, and one should never make assumptions about anyone else’s interests or intentions.

Hawaii is a refreshing return to form for Berger after his tense and visually frigid second film, Ausente. Having secured more than $22,000 through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter (disclaimer: I also made a contribution of less than one-half of 1 percent), Marco Berger and co-producer Pedro Irusta set about shooting a film they had initially planned to make with twice the budget. The product is surprisingly well-crafted, and perhaps thanks to Berger’s experience on the short-film anthology Sexual Tension: Volatile, he appears to be in complete control even as he tells a story that one expects to take up much less time.

The world of the film almost exclusively belongs to its two central characters, Eugenio and Martin, played by Manuel Vignau and the curious, wide-eyed Uruguayan actor Mateo Chiarino, respectively. With the exception of three brief scenes, they provide the only interaction of the film, and our attention is focused on the flowering of their relationship alone over the course of a few weeks during the summer.

Martin is homeless. He sleeps in the bushes under a small blanket and goes from house to house during the day asking for work. Eventually, he arrives at the gates of a large property, where the slightly bearded Eugenio, two or three years his senior, tells him the house actually belongs to his uncle, but that he needs help around the house. As Martin is about to leave, he realises he knows Eugenio from many years ago, when he spent time in the area before moving to Uruguay.

The rest of the film looks at the gradual shedding of secrets and the intimacy of shared childhood memories, which bring the two closer together.

Hawaii’s simplicity is only illusory, but the questions the viewer has as the action unfolds will be answered – or, at the very least, framed through the prism of humanity – by the end of the film in a way that ties together the loose ends. Berger expertly manages his characters’ secrets, some of which we know from the beginning, and some of which he only lets us in on over time. Almost surprisingly, homosexuality is not really one of these secrets, although it is referenced obliquely, but Berger knows that we would assume these two characters are keeping that secret, and in the process we may see the forest for the trees – in other words, we may miss the more important story, which is the growth of a relationship outside the limits imposed by supposedly keeping sexuality a secret.

Such optimism also illuminated Berger’s début feature, Plan B, in which two straight men realise they have feelings for each other. That is not to say Hawaii is devoid of tension: After a major revelation, we can feel the characters almost unable to speak to each other, and yet we will soon come to realise the source of anxiety is not quite what we think. Berger is not fooling us on purpose as much as he seems to indicate that people have their reasons, and we have to be more patient to fully comprehend them, instead of drawing an all-too-simple conclusion.

His hair styled in a butch cut, Martin at first appears to be a very straightforward role, but over time we recognise the combination of vulnerability and survival that has brought him this far, and he doesn’t want anyone’s pity. He only appears to be slightly naïve, but just because he does not spend his time writing or drawing, like Eugenio, does not mean he is not sensitive.

He, and the viewer, wants questions answered, but he does not blindly rush toward an explanation. Perhaps the viewer is more impatient, trying to figure out what it means when one touches the other lightly on the shoulder, or when Martin puts his hand on Eugenio’s chest to feel his heartbeat. Is this a game? And do they both know what they are feeling themselves, or are they in the dark about their own emotions? How close can the one allow himself to be to the other without causing suspicion?

These questions are central to the experience, and it is impressive to see Berger pose them to us without seeming to tease us, and yet, at the same time, he keeps our attention on the development of the story and of these characters.

Later, when Martin picks up one of Eugenio’s T-shirts and puts it on, we wonder whether he wants to be more like Eugenio or if there is something more intimate to this gesture. Berger keeps us in the dark, but it is not to create some false kind of tension. It is the most natural scene in the world, and yet he has imbued it with an ambiguity that is audacious and spot-on.

The first 15 minutes of the film, almost entirely without dialogue, seem to belong to a different film altogether, but far from being an artistic flaw, we eventually there is some meaning behind this, too: These 15 minutes are used to sketch a world where Eugenio and Martin have not yet met each other as adults. Once they do, it is as if the world they inhabit also changes, and the result is a film that we can savour.

Hawaii contains clever compositions that do not attract attention but demand more attention because they are deceptively simple. One example is when Martin looks at himself in the mirror in Eugenio’s room. A few minutes later, Berger only needs to show us Eugenio looking in front of him to realise he is actually looking at a reflection of Martin behind him, changing his clothes, and no reverse shot is even necessary.

That kind of oblique look, of knowing what the viewer sees and what the character sees without showing him looking, is missing, unfortunately, from a later scene next to the river. That scene in Brokeback Mountain when Jake Gyllenhaal is peeling a potato and refuses to look behind him at Heath Ledger changing his clothes was awe-inspiring because we knew exactly what was going on in Gyllenhaal’s character’s mind. The scene next to the river in Hawaii eschews this subtlety in favour of more explicit leering.

The rest of the film contains a great deal of contemplation, and while we often don’t know what goes through the characters’ minds, we have some idea. An early shot shows Martin filling a water bottle at a tap before the camera focuses on his crotch. It is a subtle hint at the frustration he keeps hidden, but this frustration helps us understand his character rather than the story, which is a good thing, even though it does make Eugenio rather difficult to decipher.

Then again, perhaps that is life. This is the world occupied by the two main characters, and by them alone, and yet we don’t feel like voyeurs but rather like explorers (incidentally, the film cites Jules Verne from time to time) who share some of the joy of their experience.

Just like Plan B, Berger’s Hawaii is a film that will make its many homosexual viewers happy to be gay. It is not political, and it is not about gay guilt or repression or angst about coming out. On the contrary, it shows how wonderful it is to be alive and be with someone who is comfortable around you, and it treats the possibility of finding love as a reality.

A Last Wish (2008)

André Crous

Una ultima voluntadArgentina
3.5*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 9 minutes

Original title: Una última voluntad

Argentine filmmaker Marco Berger’s very first short film has as much ambiguity as anything he would make in the future, and unlike so-called gay cinema in general, but exactly like the rest of Berger’s oeuvre, this film lacks any kind of overt anguish over sexuality.

In A Last Wish (Una última voluntad), set deep in a forest at an unknown time in history, we find a soldier, already captured by a foreign army, about to be executed by a firing squad. He is granted one last wish, and we learn this wish has to be executed as a final courtesy to a man who is about to die, as long as it is possible, takes less than five minutes to complete, and does not nullify his imminent execution.

The final wish of the man, credited as The Condemned (Manuel Vignau), who is never named, is very simple: a kiss. Besides the unusual request that he makes (we surmise it is unusual because the general doesn’t understand how such a request can be granted if the company consists exclusively of men), he also has a sense of mystery about him because we never hear him speak. He conveys his wish to an officer in charge, who shares it with the others.

Initially, there is some confusion, but when a thorough examination of the manual reveals there is no legal reason to deny the request, a solution must be found. Who will kiss him? The officers decide to draw straws, or matches, to be more precise, and thereby determine the other participant in the execution of this act, credited as The Chosen Soldier (played by Lucas Ferraro, who also starred opposite Vignau in Berger’s début feature, Plan B).

The short is barely 7 minutes long, and its cinematography does not exactly elicit enthusiasm, but there is a moment towards the end, once the man has been executed, that we get a pensive 360-degree pan that reveals the true purpose of the film: It is not about what happens (whether the prisoner is executed or not, whether he is kissed or not) what about the effect these events, and in particular that kiss, have on the officer who likely did not expect to share such an intimate moment with his enemy that day.

The 360-degree pan reveals The Condemned and The Chosen Soldier, both entirely still, and the relationship between the two in this scene is striking on Ferraro’s face. He doesn’t quite know what to make of everything that has happened, and neither do we, but we know that one instant had an effect on him and that sometimes love can hit you harder than violence.

Berger’s film is about a moment of discovery, not of sexuality but of intimacy, and although the setup is terribly contrived and the visuals are mostly uninteresting, his story as a framing device for a powerful moment that is sure to linger with you.

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

André Crous

USA
5*

Director:
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Screenwriters:
Gore Vidal
Tennessee Williams
Director of Photography:
Jack Hildyard

Running time: 114 minutes

It is truly remarkable that this film, whose subject is always implied but never mentioned by name, can have such a strong impact on a viewer who has grown up in a much less restricted era of movie-going. I knew this film from a Gore Vidal interview in The Celluloid Closet, in which he, the screenwriter, admitted that the finale was overblown, and the very visible reference to the demise of Frankenstein’s monster in the film by director James Whale was a bit over-the-top. I knew that the unseen protagonist was gay and killed because of his sexuality, so I did go into the film suspicious of the words about him, wary of things said and particularly of things unsaid. Perhaps this knowledge made me susceptible to a positive bias towards the film. On the other hand, the film pretends to look for the truth and yet persists in obscuring this most basic component of the story, always putting up a smokescreen in front of the viewer. And nonetheless, the film is intriguing from beginning to end.

A young woman named Catherine Holly has been diagnosed with dementia praecox following the death of her cousin, Sebastian Venable, at the hands of a street mob in Cabeza de Lobo, Spain, the previous summer. The reason for the death and the exact way in which he died remain a mystery until the very end, but our suspicions grow about the exact nature of the relationship between the two cousins when Sebastian’s overprotective mother, Violet, wants to have Catherine lobotomised for “babbling” about the events of Sebastian’s final hours. The doctor who is to perform this operation is Cukrowicz, who tries to piece together the puzzle from the fragments given to him by the supposedly insane Catherine and Sebastian’s snobbish mother.

While the screenwriters were obliged to remove references to homosexuality, it is significant that Montgomery Clift was chosen to play Dr Cukrowicz, whom Violet mistakes for her own son. Clift was gay, and even though nothing is intimated about his character’s sexuality, his casting could not have been unrelated to his sexuality. Perhaps that is a sweeping statement, but it makes perfect sense in this film where so much had to be suggestive rather than overt.

By means of imagery such as the Venus flytrap and the painting of Saint Sebastian, the film prepares us for the swallowing of poor Sebastian by the angry mob in the film’s final act. “Nature is not created in the image of man’s compassion”, says Dr Cukrowicz, and this statement, made early in the film, after Violet’s account of the “flesh-eating birds” that ravage the young sea turtles on the Galápagos Islands, paints a truthful though ominous picture of the world that will be revealed to us. “[T]he ones who eat flesh, the killers, inherited the earth. But then, they always do, don’t they?”

Cukrowicz is a serious man who barely ever blinks and is aware of the experimental nature of the work he does. In his very first scene, in the hospital’s operating room, director Mankiewicz heightens the tension with small details, both visual and auditory, that include a constant buzzing in the background. Katherine Hepburn is marvellously stiff-upper-lip as Violet Venable, who has a borderline incestuous obsession with her late son. The character of Catherine is the only place where the film and the story trips up, ever so slightly: She is put, under Cukrowicz’s care, in what seems to be the least protected mental institution in the world, where she roams freely, provoking all kinds of riots among both male and female patients. Elizabeth Taylor, who plays this role, is also in the unenviable position of appearing onscreen for the first time after we have spent a long and poignant scene in the company of Clift and Hepburn, and her acting (or her character) is no match for theirs.

Suddenly, Last Summer is a joy to behold, even more so today, because the care with which Vidal (and Williams, although he distanced himself from the film) removed the references to Sebastian’s homosexuality while leaving in just enough to make us wonder. The casting of Clift and the image of Sebastian being devoured by a mob of young men are equally impressive and give ample food for thought, as they imply what could not be said outright.

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

André Crous

USA
4*

Director:
Lisa Cholodenko
Screenwriters:
Lisa Cholodenko
Stuart Blumberg
Director of Photography:
Igor Jadue-Lillo

Running time: 104 minutes

The other night, I watched an episode from the fourth season of the television series Queer as Folk. The lesbian couple, Lindsey and Melanie, had been together for many years and ont he verge of having their second biological child. Unexpectedly, an arrogant but brilliant chauvinist artist arrives and philanders his way into Lindsey’s panties – Lindsey clearly enjoys the sex but doesn’t see herself as any less of a lesbian. Nonetheless, this kind of sex puts a tense question mark above her sexuality.

There is a similar dilemma at the heart of the drama in The Kids Are All Right, a film by Lisa Cholodenko, who openly self-identifies as a lesbian. I mention her sexuality, because I think I would have struggled to reconcile the events of the film with my idea of realistic character development had anyone but a lesbian director made the film. Whether the viewer is gay or straight, the problem of strict definitions regarding human sexuality is still a biggy and very often, we will be confronted with situations we have absolutely no experience with, either in real life or in the lives we see on screen.

Paul, the “other man” in this film, is no random sleazy artist – he is the two children’s biological father and has never had contact with anyone in this family until the start of the film. He is single and likes to sleep around, with his employees and with other people he meets at his restaurant. He has a rebellious streak and when his children decide to contact him, he jumps at the opportunity to see what life might have been like in some other realm of possibility.

Obviously, he never would have been a part of this family. He is the father of two children, technically a step-brother and a step-sister, whose mothers are their parents. But he tries to be a part and successfully manages to get Jules, who is losing faith that her wife Nic still loves her, into bed.

Julianne Moore and Annette Bening are delightful as the mothers of two children who simply wanted to meet their dad because they had the means to track him down. But it is Annette Bening in particular who shines as Nic, Jules’s tough-skinned but not insensitive partner, and I think this representation of an unconventional family with many problems, not unlike any other family, is necessary and convincing for the most part.

However, I take issue with the representation of lesbian fornication. Granted, I know nothing about it, but just as I do not choose to watch girl-on-girl pornography, I can’t really comprehend the thinking behind Nic and Jules’s decision to watch gay porn while having sex. Now, perhaps it problematises sexuality right from the get-go and that is probably the justification, but it becomes a plot point that their children address but neither they nor we get any satisfactory explanation for this beyond the “fluidity of sexuality” or something equally vague.