THEGAYUK

Tag: Movie Genre Documentary

Welcome to our extensive Documentary film reviews.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Invisible Men

    ★★★★★ | The Invisible Men

    Louie is a 32-year-old Palestinian who tries to live his life unobtrusively hidden away from society’s prying eyes. He has no legal right to live in Israel, and thus without papers he must continually avoid any confrontation with the police or officialdom, as if he returns back across the border he risks the very real death threats from his own family and all simply because he’s gay.

    This remarkable award-winning documentary from Israeli filmmaker Yariv Mozer tracks Louie as he goes about his daily life in Tel Aviv. A somewhat shy, introverted and extremely likeable young man, Louie survives by doing odd jobs of work and constantly moving apartments as he tries to keep one step ahead of the authorities all the time. On the several times he is caught, the police deport him back to Ramallah, but yet somehow this quiet resourceful man soon manages to very soon sneak back into Israel once again. It’s a harrowing existence and when he relates the lurid details to Mozer of how his family tied him up and tried to slaughter him like an animal, you know that he has no other choice if he wants to live.

    After what seems like just one to many deportations, Louie contacts a refugee law centre at the university and discovers that there is a possible way out from this predicament. Under international law he can apply for asylum in another country (that will be chosen for him) and resettle there. There are no guarantees he will be awarded this and he is warned that his chances of succeeding are slim. A skeptical Louie is put in touch with Abdu another gay Palestinian who has already been accepted and is about to leave for his yet unknown new country/home. Abdu, an outgoing extrovert, is totally opposite to Louie and he shows his new timid friend a whole underground gay movement that Louis finds hard to believe.

    Months later when Louie gets word that he has won a much coveted asylum place, he starts having very serious second thoughts. Israel has been his home for the past 10 years, and although it has been a scary and dangerous existence, he feels a great draw as this is where he believes he truly belongs, despite all the pain and heartache that he has been through, he really wants to stay.

    Mozer tells Louie’s emotional charged story without disguising his own attachment, but he does sensibly refrain from making any comment at all on the tense political situation that engulfs this whole region. It’s a humanitarian tale that will shock most of us living in the West to realise (or be reminded) that being gay in any Arab country puts your very life at risk, and being Palestinian in a country where you are illegal, which in Louie’s case was his birthplace, seems so very unjust.

    An extremely moving heartbreaking story that is sensitively documented, and that will rightly jerk you out of your comfort zone… it’s very definitely unmissable.

    P.S. Louie is safely living somewhere in Europe coping with the snow, but as Yariv Mozer has told us he’s ‘the only gay in the village’. However he’s alive and well and even getting some assistance to help him heal his emotional scars. He is one of the lucky ones.

  • FILM REVIEW | Sexing The Transman

    When the opening credits roll in Buck Angel’s new documentary and you see that it is an ‘I Love My Vagina Production’, you know that this is going to be a no-holds-barred look at demystifying the whole aspect of sexuality of trans men.

    What the charismatic handsome hunky Angel does is fill this highly unusual ‘sex education’ movie with scenes of explicit sexual activity to ensure that we are shocked enough not to forget his message of how liberated these men became after transitioning.

    In a series of in-depth interviews Angel talks to a several FtM (female to male) trans people about how they felt alienated from the bodies that they were born with and their decisions to transition into a male persona. They all had a great deal in common as they discussed the surgeries to get rid of their breasts, and how the effects of taking testosterone changed their lives in ways they never expected.

    Before transitioning some of them had played the traditional female roles with their boyfriends, some of them were in relationships with lesbians, but once all the hormone treatments kicked in, they all seemed to notice that their sexual libido shot through the ceiling and they started to be much more fluid and open to all different types of people to have sex with. Most of them also followed the same route that Angel took and opted not to have ‘bottom surgery’ with the end result that have started to be proud of the vaginas that had disgusted them previously, and now they were being penetrated and actually enjoying it.

    They all unanimously agreed that transitioning had changed their lives completely and for the better. Some of them are now in relationships, some have sex with other FtM guys like themselves, some like sex with men, some others like it with women. In terms of gender they all feel male. In terms of sexual orientation, they are very different – some of them are heterosexual (they like sex with women), some are gay (they like sex with other men or FtM men) and some like to experiment with men, women and FtM guys.

    As an outsider, it is often hard to get beyond our preconceived ideas of gender and the labels that society insists that we all use. One of Angel’s talking heads was the comedienne Margaret Cho who perfectly articulated her take on it all. Her sexuality had been ‘straight’ and then ‘lesbian’ and then she realised that she loved men sexually, and trans men in particular. She now identifies, as being queer as that, she feels, is not limiting and it makes sense to her as ‘gay’ simply doesn’t cover who she is. And she aptly sums up the feelings she shares with many trans men by saying that she is happy with strap on’s…’a dick is a dick, whether it’s been bought or grown.’

    The message that is loud and clear in Angel’s film is that the effects of injecting so much testosterone is that it makes you aware of many more possibilities and that your sexuality is never finite whatever your gender is. I am however also convinced that we would have completely grasped that concept without nearly all of the film’s subjects getting naked and playing with themselves on camera.

    Above everything, Angel is a powerful advocate for making this community visible and giving them a voice, for which he needs to be applauded for.

  • FILM REVIEW | Meet The Fokkens

    69-year-old identical Dutch twins Martine and Louise Fokken give a new meaning to the word sexagenarian. Both of them have been working as prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red light district for almost 50 years now, and Marianne is still plying her trade daily. (Louise retired 2 years ago when arthritis meant she ‘couldn’t get one leg over each other’ any more)!

    ★★★★★

    In this truly delightful documentary we discover that they are a wonderfully colorful irascible pair of Rubenesque women who have such joie de vivre. The film starts with following elderly Martine as she catches the bus from the suburbs clutching her tiny chihuahua (which she NEVER ever seems to put down) and en route to work calls in at the convenience store to pick up another box of 144 condoms. Immensely affable she greets everyone she meets with her big smile and constant chatter as if she is just heading for another day at the office.

    Setting up her room she hangs her accouterments to show to passing strangers that she offers dominatrix and other kinky services for her ‘naughty’ men, and then dressed very provocatively sits in her large window enticing then to come in. The fact that all the ‘working girls’ in adjoining ‘windows’ are barely 20-years-old seems to hardly bother this old trooper at all.

    The sisters explain that very few of the punters want full intercourse but just to simply ‘get their rocks off,’ and the film includes some hilarious scenes with Martine and her gentlemen callers and how easily she can get them to be satisfied. What should be regarded, as an intensely sexual experience seems to be harmless and a somewhat funny episode for the men who appear to enjoy the free cup of coffee afterwards just as much.

    The sisters are inseparable and do literally everything together and live in their own apartments that are in buildings opposite each other. They dress in the same bright gaudy clothes, finish each other’s sentences and clearly are each other’s best friend. We see them in conversation with each other and also alone talking unguardedly straight to the camera about their lives to date. The information they reveal is somewhat patchy which makes their story even more intriguing. When Louise was 19-years-old and already a mother of 3 children her physically abusive husband ‘forced’ her into working, as a prostitute and Martine seemed to follow almost to support her sister’s indignity and precarious situation.

    They touch on the fact that they made so much money in the early days, but now stuck in municipal housing there is no sign of it at all. They are fiercely independent and talk about the days when they broke away from the organised crime ‘pimp’ system and even opened up their own brothel at one time. And there is a scene when Louise is reconciled with one of her daughters but no real explanation is offered as to why the child grew up with foster parents. It’s almost like there is a whole another movie to be made here.

    The sisters own pleasure now is in painting bright garish canvases of scenes of their life in the Red Light District. Like the women themselves their artwork can best be described as somewhat naive. They do however make for a wonderful scene towards the end of the film when they are exhibited in a Gallery and all their old cronies turn up to show their support and their genuine love for these two unstoppable women.

    They are two good-natured women with an infectious sense of humour who have obviously led a tough life yet appear to bare no scars or even deep resentments even, and the final scene where they are frolicking together in the snow like a couple of silly schoolgirls shows what a wonderful resilient couple they are.

    A sheer joy to watch, and even enough reason to check up flight schedules to Amsterdam.

    by @RogerWalkerDack

  • FILM REVIEW | Folsom Forever

    ★★★★ | Folsom Forever

    Mike Skiff’s illuminating new documentary on the Folsom Street Fair, one of San Francisco’s iconic gay events, starts off by dispelling a few of the myths that surround its 30-year history.

    Initially, the Fair was created in 1984 as part of a growing protest movement that objected to the enforced gentrification of what previously had been one of the most blighted areas of the city. The inhabitants of the skid row houses and the working men bars were being forced out as the authorities bulldozed their way through the area to put up shiny new expensive buildings.

    This was also the height of the AIDS crisis, which would go on to decimate the city’s gay population so the advent of the Fair created an opportunity for much-needed fund raising. Audrey Joseph a local activist stressed the point that the presence then of so many women supporters, who were the most accepting of AIDS victims, helped create a crucial space without judgments at the Fair.

    The whole area known as South of Market was already home to a plethora of leather bars which local historian Jack Fritscher Ph.D. explained had sprung up as bolt holes for gay hyper-masculine men who were not interested in the stereotypical roles that were most prevalent in the community at the time. Dr Fritscher who also worked for Drummer the now defunct leather magazine talked about the oft-misunderstood leather and BDSM community who came into its own then by promoting their safe sex practices. He explained said the whole concept of successful BDSM is sexual acts within agreed lines of limits to make sure each part is safe and pleasurable. It wasn’t an argument that sat well with the Authorities who at the time were panicking like everyone else and wanting someone to blame for this uncontrollable epidemic.

    Skiff added: “In the 1970s, Folsom Street was the West Coast’s mecca for anyone on their leather journey in life and his movie goes on to explore why the Folsom Street Fair couldn’t have got started anywhere else but San Francisco.”

    When someone talks about Folsom Street Fair now, the leather and fetish elements of the historic outdoor celebration of sexual diversity are likely what come to mind, and it follows the tradition of where members of the LGBT community are given the space to explore the full spectrum of their sexuality and queerness.

    It’s the one time of the year when those into kink and fetish can literally dress anyhow and do anything they want and the Fair security staff who police the streets will only stop them if they engaging in full on sex. Evidently that you can do in any of the bars on the strip.

    Nowadays the Fair is not only a major social event it is also one that has an enormous economic impact on the city. Demetri Moshoyannnis the Executive Director estimates that San Francisco benefits to the tune of some $35.4 million in revenue, and the Fair itself raises some hundreds of thousands in profits that it distributes to fund important local non-profit organisations.

  • FILM REVIEW | Italy

    ★★★★★ | Love It or Leave It. In 2009 I remembered being totally enamored with an irrepressible young Italian gay couple that documented the struggle of acceptance of gay rights in their country and being totally horrified about the vitriol and power of the far right political parties that seem to make the American Evangelistic Conservatives seem like real sweethearts by comparison.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Candid Love

    ★★ | Candid Love

    Filmmaker Kurtz Frausun’s voyeuristic record of an ill-fated relationship between two desperately troubled men is a disturbing sight that raises all sorts of questions.

    The first one of which is why they even allowed the intrusive camera into their lives at a time when they are both clinging on to the last vestiges of hope as their worlds continue to unfold in front of their (and our) eyes. Frausun even jumps in front of the camera at one point to question the morality of being a witness to this highly personal situation especially when it soon becomes apparent to us, if not the two men themselves, that it is doomed.

    Jon is gay and bi-polar and Daniel his partner is a recovering alcoholic and suffers from depression and has still not recovered from the love of his life who is his (ex) wife of 11 years. He doesn’t identify as gay per se but admits to dating gay men in the two years since his marriage fell apart. Jon is his second boyfriend and they are fast approaching their first anniversary when Daniel’s father is suddenly taken to hospital with an aneurysm.

    The ‘story’ starts after Daniel has rushed from the apartment he shares with Jon in Texas to his father’s bedside in Wisconsin. A quick session of events follow resulting in the father’s death and Daniel needing to deal with both planning the funeral and taking care of his mother even though it is clear from the morose and confusing phone conversations with Jon that his depression has really kicked up a notch or two and that he will not be able to resist slipping back into hitting the bottle again.

    In all of his conversations, first on the phone and then when he eventually comes back to Texas, he uses Jon as a verbal punching bag, although judging from his disclosures, sometimes in the past he resorted to physical violence as well. His is obviously a deeply unhappy man struggling with his mental health issues who makes no secret that his ‘relationship’ with Jon started falling apart just after two months and as he goes into detail of its disintegration, it’s remarkable that he even considers continuing wanting to be with someone he has such scant regard for and seems to positive loathe.

    Jon is not much better as all he does is complain to the camera about how miserably unhappy he is with the state of affairs between the two of them and the only thing that makes it all bearable is smoking. Legal and illegal cigarettes.

    It’s infuriating at times watching these two people’s obvious pain as they just stumble around directionless and as the totally unsatisfactory compromise that they clumsily piece together hasn’t a chance in hell in succeeding, doesn’t make their reality any less unpalatable. I simply have no idea why they put themselves through it all let alone why they allowed the camera to record it. I for one, wished they hadn’t.

    ‘Candid’ means straightforward and honest, and frankly, neither Daniel nor Jon were capable of really ever being this. Plus of all the emotions they showed in the 60 minutes of this film there was very little ‘love’, if any at all.

  • FILM REVIEW | Rent Boys

    ★★★★ | Rent Boys

    For well over the past four decades, Berlin’s Zoo Railway Station has been the main stomping ground for the city’s rent boys.

    Using archive footage from 1965 this fascinating documentary from gay activist filmmaker Rosa Van Praunheim paints the scene there as it has evolved until the present day. It is a desperately sad tale of the squalid and dangerous lives these boys lead in an occupation that at best leaves them scarred for life, and at worse cost them their lives.

    In the early days, in particular, most of the boys that hustled sex for money were victims of sexual abuse themselves and were plying for trade in their very early teens, and some even younger. Their tales were particularly harrowing especially when they were continuously exploited by paedophiles, and were completely unaware of all the inherent dangers of life on the street.

    Nowadays very few of the boys are German and are heterosexual immigrants from neighbouring ex-Eastern bloc countries who, discovering that they can make more money from one encounter with a ‘john’ than they could laborfor a month back home, are prepared to become ‘gay for pay’ for the financial rewards. They take the same risks, plus the possibility of being deported too.

    Van Praunheim profiled a few of the boys who had been working Zoo Station and the environs for some years now, and despite all the risks, still appeared reluctant to give it up. He went to the hustler bars and talked to the barkeepers who related about the abuse, the violence, the crime and the drug taking in a resigned almost complacent manner. He also followed the workers of SUB/WAY a support group who try their best to help the boys particularly to prevent the spread of AIDS & HIV, and dedicated and hardworking as they are, seemed to be making little headway in getting them off the streets.

    The boys’ stories are heart-rending and there isn’t one that has a happy ending. As they eventually drop out/leave fresher naive young boys take their places and the supply chain never seems to be broken. As Van Praunheim’s film shows, the price the pay for their seedy unhappy lives is far too high.

    Fascinating, but extremely disturbing to watch.

  • FILM REVIEW | Do I Sound Gay?

    When journalist David Thorpe found himself single again in his mid-forties he started to angst as to what could possibly be so wrong with him that he should be dumped so unceremoniously. His immediate thought was that the problem must be his voice, that he had always hated, and how it must now be a turn off for other men too. It propelled him into jettisoning his job working for a non-profit housing association and embarking on a journey to ask the world at large the question that had been nagging him for years… do I sound gay?

    ★★★★★

    Thorpe’s somewhat light-hearted investigation starts with him accepting that he dislikes gay-sounding voices, especially his own and he wonders if with professional help it can in fact be changed. A very pushy speech therapist has him working on his ‘nasality’ and long vowels to get a ‘go-too’ voice whatever that maybe. She, thank goodness, is not the only figure that Thorpe seeks advice from and his interviews with some legendary gay figures make both sound, and also hilarious, contributions to his quest.

    Satirist David Sedaris admits that his own remarkably effeminate sounding voice means that he is regularly mistaken on the phone as a woman. Disarmingly frank Sedaris confesses that he actually feels good when a stranger tells him that he doesn’t ‘sound gay’ even though he had believed himself to be ‘beyond all that’. Project Runway’s Tim Gunn says he was appalled when he first heard his voice, but has learned to live with it and love it even. ‘If people hear my voice and call me gay, I’ll say thank you. I’m proud of it’.

    Sex columnist Dan Savage adds a touch of seriousness to the topic by commenting that ‘hating your voice is the last vestige of internalised homophobia.’ On the other hand actor Jeff Hiller handles the reality of the roles that his ‘gay voice’ will limit him too with remarkable good humour and a healthy dashing of some wicked wit. ‘If the gay role is a meaty part, they will always cast a straight actor. If the part is a gay guy with a hot body then I obviously cannot play that. So I just play the sad self-hating bitter queens’, he says roaring with laughter and adding ‘ I’ll take those ugly girl roles because at least I get to work.’

    Thorpe sprinkles his immensely watchable documentary with some lively vox populi, and also his own friends are on hand to lend their voices too even though they do not share his concern that the subject matter is really that important. When at the end he pushes them to give an opinion of his newly trained voice they all tell him that they cannot notice any difference in how he sounds at all. However what they (and we) perceive by now is that his voice didn’t change, but he did.

    As his most entertaining journey draws to a conclusion Thorpe realised that there was nothing wrong with sounding like he does, and equally there is nothing wrong with being a gay man having a gay voice. He was very content to have taken on his quest summing it up his reasoning of ‘if you cannot handle the answer then it’s a question you’ve got to ask.’ We’re glad he did.

  • FILM REVIEW | Straight Acting

    ★★★★ | Straight Acting

    To most ‘out’ gay men “straight acting” is a derogatory term that is the equivalent of self-loathing. This rather inspiring and enthusiastic wee documentary is one man’s journey coming out of the closet and seeking to define his own concept of being gay when he felt he didn’t fit in with any of the stereotypes that he had known to date.

    Spencer Windes was the middle child of a middle-class Mormon family who always did what was expected of him, most of the time that is. At 19 he went off to be a Missionary as his church told him to do, and then he returned home to find a girl, get married and start his own family. Trouble was it didn’t turn out quite like that as Spencer Windes was a deeply closeted gay man and he just hoped that Jesus would sort him out. And we all know how well that usually works out!

    At 31 years old, a deeply unhappy four times college drop out Spencer, now weighing some 300 lbs, was unemployed and still living at home. And then the planes crashed on that fateful day on 9/11 and this was the epiphany that changed his life. On the plane that crashed into the field in Pennsylvania one of the heroes who had tried to stop the terrorists was Mark Bingham. He was not only a big burly (handsome) man, but he was also openly gay. He was also a member of San Francisco FOG a new all openly gay Rugby Team, and that part blew Spencer away. To be out and gay was one thing, but to be able to play a rough contact sport like that was totally another.

    It inspired him to start losing waiting and sign up to join the LA Ironsides even though he had never played rugby in his life before. Much more importantly it opened his eyes to what was a startling concept to him (and other gay men who live rural lives in particular) to all the alternative gay ‘lifestyles’ that now existed, and which became the subject of this movie.

    He went to gay rodeos in the Mid West and met the riders, and to New York to meet gay hockey players and interviewed men who had also struggled with initially opening the closet door, but once they got a taste of what was the other side, came out fully. The universal message from them all was that they had found a gay lifestyle where they fitted in, and were now happy in the own skins at last.

    He also followed the journey of the (eventual) success of his own rugby team as it flew to London to complete in the Gay Rugby World Cup poignantly named after Mark Bingham, and there is one very emotional scene where Mark’s mother makes a wee speech to the hoards of excited gay rugby players.

    This is no dazzling or profound highly polished documentary but simply the highly personalised account of one very likeable young man’s journey of discovery that I think a lot of others struggling with their own identity would find both uplifting and touching. I really warmed to it, so much so that I can’t wait to start playing rugby! No really, I will.

  • FILM REVIEW: Kink, The no-holds-barred documentary on Kink

    KINK.com is the largest producer of online BDSM porn movies in the USA and was started by Peter Ackworth, a Brit, from his Dorm Room at school in the UK in 1997. Now based in an enormous defunct Armory Building in San Francisco with many of the original facilities untouched as they make prefect sets for a lot of the perverse activity that now fills the building.

    Kink produce movies for the 30 odd different sites they now operate and they cover the whole Bondage and Sado Masochism spectrum from slave training, rope bondage, femdom, gay public Sex, bondage gangbang, female domination, submissive women, lesbian bondage, shemales, naked wrestling, pissing, and sex machines etc etc. And in this no-holds-barred documentary you get to witness several of the extreme films being made …. I hope the participants were acting in part at least because what they allowed their bodies to be subjected too looked awfully painful from where I was sitting.

    Filmmaker Christina Voros set out to go behind the mystique of the industry and as she is being shown around the building there is a hilarious scene where she cannot make herself heard above the din coming from the other end of the floor, Ackworth explains there is an orgy underway… not something you hear every day. She interviews several of the directors who, with the odd exception, are very matter of fact about their work and how they want to simply be the best in their genre. Occasionally one will try to intellectualize what they are about, but when they tried to align this to an art form, they get twisted up in more knots than the models on set.

    There is also something rather wholesome about the big family atmosphere that permeates throughout the whole company… and it is rather fascinating to watch the directors and management have their monthly meeting to discuss their success. Why they ask, have the ratings for ‘Divine Bitches’ soared whilst ‘Electo Sluts’ is on the decline? Why indeed, but evidently there are fashions and trends that must be watched even in the sex industry.

    The fly on the wall approached worked well and Ms Voros allowed us to witness it all without narration and more importantly, without judgement. Was it shocking? In parts, yes but not the graphic sex but more the aggressive bondage parts in particular. Did we learn anything? Well, yes… thanks to a Dominatrix we know how to stand on an erect penis in stiletto heels without causing any pain. Was it entertaining? To an extent, but it is essentially one big Advertorial for the Kink sites, which lessens its impact and certainly its importance as a general essay on the S + M industry. Would we recommend it? Certainly if you want to be reminded how boring your own sex life really is.

    One our favourite anecdotes was when one of the models had just finished a very intensive hardcore slave/submission movie and dressed in his white terry robe he walked into the main office and was politely asked how his scene had gone. He replied very matter-of-fact “I got f***ed good”. And there you have it.

    by Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW| Born To Fly: Elizabeth Streb Vs. Gravity

    Elizabeth Streb is an American performer, teacher and celebrated modern dance choreographer who is never happy until she pushes everybody beyond the edge and way out of their comfort zone. ★★★★★

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