THEGAYUK

Tag: Movie Genre Gay

The latest reviews for gay movies. Read all of THEGAYUK’s reviews.

  • FILM REVIEW: Errodity(s)

    FILM REVIEW: Errodity(s)

    The only thing horrifying about Steven Vasquez’s new anthology of gay teen movies of the supernatural is some of the acting.★★ (more…)

  • FILM REVIEW | Getting Go

    For three weeks in the summer of 2012 filmmakers Cory James Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson (the producer/director behind the cute ‘MARIACHI GRINGO’ and the gay cult film ‘Were The World Mine’) followed two guys all over New York with a camera and a script and nothing else. ★★★★★

    Tanner, a slightly nerdy recent college grad had devised a plan to shoot a documentary about the NYC nightlife scene in order to meet a really hot go-go guy that he has cyber-obsessed with. And this is the film about their film.

    They followed the couple filming each other all over the city in cafes and bars, rooftops, dance clubs, their own living rooms and bathrooms and eventually into their bedrooms too. As the story developed and the relationship between ‘Go’ and ‘Doc’ evolved in front of us, there is a very definite, and somewhat unexpected, shift in the power axis between the two men.

    This really is guerrilla filmmaking at its best. No crew, a kickstarter budget of $10K, one actor and one real life go-go boy in an innovative hybrid of documentary, narrative and art film that is such a delight.

    Following hot on the heels of movies such as Weekend, Keep The Lights On and Hors Les Murs this wee drama is part of a very welcome new movement of edgy queer cinema.

    By no means perfect (like the editing!) but it has many things to really love… such as a rather brilliant soundtrack of new music from gay musicians… not to forget the acting of these two young leads who are not exactly tough on the eye to watch even with their clothes on. It also packs an energy and excitement that is quite infectious.

    The future of gay cinema looks very promising indeed when new work like this is being made… and finding the audience it deserves.

    Buy now from Amazon

     

  • FILM REVIEW | The Case Against 8

    ★★★★★ | The Case Against 8

    On the morning of November 5th 2008 our euphoria over the election of Barak Obama as the first African/American President of the US was severely dampened when we learnt that voters in California had passed Proposition 8, albeit by a slim majority. Overnight they had taken away the legal right of same-sex marriages in the State. It was a bitter blow for those still wanting to marry and it created sheer confusion and dismay for the 18000 couples that had wed in the past few months.

    There was immediate talk of mounting a legal challenge in federal court but it wasn’t until someone had the inspired idea of engaging the services of Ted Olsen did the notion take flight. Olsen seemed a highly unlikely choice as he was not only a prominent Republican who had been the US Solicitor General but more famously had been the chief advocate in the US Supreme Court in Bush vs Gore which resulted in George W. snatching the Presidency from Al Gore who had won the popular vote. There was a great deal of opposition to Olsen from many sections of the gay community who thought he was a ‘mole’ planted by the Right wing, and also many in the Republican considered him a traitor to their cause.

    Olsen however soon showed his sincerity and total commitment to fighting for the overturn of Prop 8 by persuading prominent Democratic Lawyer David Boiles, who had been his opposition when he had acted for Vice President Gore, to now be his co-counsel. It was a shrewd move as the two high-flying lawyers not only had a great deal of respect for each other, but they brought different skills to the case and made an invincible team.

    Olsen explained the reasoning for his own stance very clearly in the film. “Marriage is a conservative value. It’s two people who love one another and want to live together in a stable relationship, to become part of a family and part of neighborhood and our economy. We should want people to come together in marriage.’ It was one of the many times in this riveting documentary that Olsen quietly demonstrated what an outstanding humanitarian he really is.

    The legal challenge was mounted by Chad Griffin and the leadership of American Foundation of Equal Rights (AFER) and what strikes you so vividly as this story unfolds is not just the dogged determination and commitment of the vast team but the realisation on how much gay activism has changed. Gone are the rabid well-meaning dis-organised hippies of my youth whose anger always fueled our protests that so often muddied the water rather than help us make progress as the establishment ran rings around us.

    Griffin’s team of lawyers and the lead counsels mounted the whole campaign with such sheer professionalism, micro-managing every minute detail that made for an impressive compelling argument. Their strategy was to focus on the very obvious facts of the matter with the reality that this was about a basic human right. Whereas the opposition who were much better funded, relied on hot-headed rhetoric and their own personal opinions steeped in bigotry and hate with scant regard for the proven facts.

    When David Boiles personally supervised the taking of depositions from all the expert witnesses the opposition put forward, he was so relentless that they all but one, withdraw before the first trial. The remaining ‘expert’ David Blankenhorn was the cause of some merriment when the Team uncovered that asides from the tome he had penned on marriage his only other qualification was his Masters Degree. It was on Victorian Cabinet making! And later on when he was being cross examined by Mr Boiles on the witness stand in court he did a complete U turn and actually agreed that same sex marriage should be legalised. It was, as Mr Olsen described as ‘a Perry Mason moment’ and the start of the collapse of the Opposition’s case.

    AFER’s thorough search to find the perfect Plaintiffs on whose behalf the Law would be challenged was impressive. More so that the two couples who were selected were four of the most self-effacing brave individuals who were willing to step out of their comfort zones and allow every facet of their lives to be examined in minute detail. They were never ever be out of public gaze for the next 5 years.

    Kris Perry and Sandy Steir had married in 2004 and had four sons, whereas Jeffrey Zamillo and Paul Katami had been together for 6 years and wanted to marry before they started a family. The fact that they allowed the filmmakers to record even the very painful experiences of some very brutal and highly personal questioning they faced when they were put through their paces by Olsen as a practice run, endeared them even more to us all.

    The Federal trial before Judge Walker resulting in Prop 8 being struck down, and the subsequent Appeal by the Opposition that failed leading to the whole Case winding up in the US Supreme Court was covered extensively in the media. However what this exceptionally wonderful documentary does is give a fascinating record of all the goings on behind the scenes and in particular a very highly personal look at some of the crucial and personal highlights that made this struggle seem even more poignant. When the victorious four Plaintiffs are finally on the steps of the Supreme Court after the Justices have struck D.O.M.A. down, Chad Griffin passes them his cellphone. Barak Obama is on the line from Air Force One proffering his congratulations. If you were not crying before then, you certainly were then. It is a moment in history which should never be forgotten.

    There is another wee part later on when the tears are of joy. Jeffrey and Paul are at Los Angelas City Hall where they are about to be married by the Mayor himself. It is the first day that same-sex is legal again in California but the Clerk refuses to give them a License as she claims she has not been officially notified. The ACER lawyer accompanying the men makes a quick call passes the phone to the Clerk’ s Supervisor. On the line is Kamala Harris, California’s Attorney General who orders him to issue the license immediately. It’s so good to have friends in high places.

    Filmmakers Ben Cotner and Ryan White approached AFER in 2009 with the idea of making this documentary not knowing how the legal action would turn out. They were giving unprecedented access and so were there filming every single step of the five year battle. They spent endless emotional days and sleepless nights with the entire team and the Plaintiffs and ended up with over 600 hours of footage.

    What they achieved, along with editor Kate Amend, is a remarkable concise and spellbinding account that covered this historic turning point in a style it so richly deserved. It perfectly captured the sheer energy of all the people who put their own lives on hold and gave this fight their all to enable gay men and women should be accorded this basic human right and with such dignity.

    Even though we all knew by now the outcome of this particular fight it’s still impossible not to be somewhat overwhelmed with emotion when you witness this account. You will certainly not be the only one who is reaching for a Kleenex more than once.

    N.B. the final word must go to Ted Olsen, who along with David Boiles, deserve nothing less than our utmost respect and deep gratitude (and maybe the Presidential Medal of Freedom too!) Mr Olsen simply said that equal rights are always worth fighting for.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Test

    ★★★★★ | Test
    When the AIDS epidemic first started back in the early 1980’s the air was rife with panic and dramatic rumors that took the place of hard facts about the disease that were so few and far in between. Nowhere more so than in San Francisco home to a significantly large gay community. By 1985 when the first ever test for HIV was introduced nearly every gay man was living in fear of being diagnosed positive and facing an imminent death.

    Chris Mason-Johnson’s excellent narrative is about one such young gay man… Frankie… who was a standby for a leading contemporary dance company in San Francisco at the time. He is quite skinny and scrawny compared to the 6 hunky hot men that he understudies and is often taunted by the choreographer to ‘dance like a man’ but that is only part of his worries as each day he listens and watches the onslaught of media coverage on the health crisis… ‘should Gays be quarantined’ one paper’s headline screams. He finds himself checking his body for any of the new tell tell signs that have just been announced.

    He is not alone, as most of the other male dancers are doing this in private too. Even hirsute Todd, the ‘bad boy’ of the company that Frankie obviously has a crush on, is convinced that he is now doomed to an early death. The girls in the troupe start to get nervous of dancing with their partners who are sweating in case this is one way the disease can be spread, and they even go as far as trying to encourage Frankie to turn ‘straight’ to save himself. It’s something that his roommate Tyler decides to do anyway and he announces that he is moving in with his new ‘girlfriend’ Tracey.

    The one relief throughout all this angst and dread is the dancing. Frankie and the others come alive on stage and are momentarily transformed with an uplifting feeling of hope and beauty as they dance their hearts out with their bodies intertwined and their minds for once full of joy. The despair may come back when the curtain falls but at least for them this is one very important reason for living right now.

    As Frankie and Todd come to the point where maybe they have more than just a casual connection, there is a glorious moment of much needed humor when they wrestle with the novelty of having to use condoms for the first time. ‘What’, asks Frankie, ‘would it be like if from now on we had to only have sex with just one person to be safe? Would we really have to be monogamous?’ he adds with a grin on his face.

    It’s a powerful tale particularly as for once it is a story about very gay young men, and is serves to reminds us of how free and easy their (and our) lives where in the days before the crisis. Despite including all the paranoia and the homophobia that were so prevalent at the time, Mason Johnson’s tale is also very much one of hope, and that despite the inconceivable amount of people that so tragically lost their lives, others survived and society did eventually heal.

    It was a stunning acting debut from dancer Scott Marlowe as Frankie and he had great chemistry with hunky Matthew Risch as Todd (see opposites do attract). And the dancing itself which was a major part of the story was exquisite and so fluid… and the fact that writer/director Mason Johnson playing the choreographer was also an ex-dancer no doubt had a lot to do with it.

    The story is slow to unfold as it take us to the place where Frankie must decide about taking the test but its worth each one of its 89 mins to get him/us there.

    Unmissable

  • FILM REVIEW | Getting Go, The Go Doc Project

    ★★★★★ | Getting Go, The Go Doc Project

    For three weeks in the summer of 2012 filmmakers Cory James Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson (the producer/director behind the cute ‘MARIACHI GRINGO’ and the gay cult film ‘WERE THE WORLD MINE’) followed two guys all over New York with a camera and a script and nothing else.

    Tanner, a slightly nerdy recent College Grad had devised a plan to shoot a documentary about the NYC nightlife scene in order to meet a really hot go-go guy that he has cyber-obsessed with. And this is the film about their film.

    They followed the couple filming each other all over the city in cafes and bars, rooftops, dance clubs, their own living rooms and bathrooms and eventually into their bedrooms too. As the story developed and the relationship between ‘Go’ and ‘Doc’ evolved in front of us, there is a very definite, and somewhat unexpected, shift in the power axis between the two men.

    This really is guerrilla filmmaking at its best. No crew, a kickstarter budget of $10K, one actor and one real life go-go boy in an innovative hybrid of documentary, narrative and art film that is such a delight. Following hot on the heels of movies such as ‘WEEKEND’ ‘KEEP THE LIGHTS ON’ and ‘HORS LES MURS’ this wee drama is part of a very welcome new movement of edgy queer cinema.

    By no means perfect (like the editing!) but it has many things to really love… such as a rather brilliant soundtrack of new music from gay musicians… not to forget the acting of these two young leads who are not exactly tough on the eye to watch even with their clothes on. It also packs an energy and excitement that is quite infectious.

    The future of gay cinema looks very promising indeed when new work like this is being made… and finding the audience it deserves.

  • FILM REVIEW | Truth

    ★★★ | Truth

    When middle-aged Jeremy turns up at the coffee shop for a first date with Caleb a young barista he met online he thinks he has hit the jackpot. The boy is a hottie and a total charmer too, and before you can say ‘I’ll have a latte’ the two men are sitting on the couch holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. Back home in Caleb’s rather large house, the sex is hot (it’s sensuous rather than explicit) and a good time is had by all.

    Caleb wakes up alone next morning with no sign of his new silver fox lover who has left without even a phone number and who remains incommunicado until he shows up unannounced at the coffee shop three days later. His explanation for his absence is feeble but Caleb thinks ‘this’ could be the real thing so he just accepts Jeremy’s lame excuse. They have some great make-up sex and declare their undying love to each other and are prepared to live happily ever after. But it’s what they don’t tell each other over the next few months that is going to shape their futures and not in a way that either had hoped and wanted.

    Pill popping Caleb suffers from a borderline personality disorder and has not disclosed that the mother he claimed had died is a psychotic alcoholic, who had abused him, is now in an institution. When Jeremy hearing part of the story thinks he is helping by locating the mother, Caleb, and the plot, start to fall apart.

    Jeremy it turns out has also his own big secret and when Caleb uncovers this nine months into their relationship he loses it completely. This overwrought melodrama suddenly changes tack and turns into a psychological thriller as Caleb holds the older man captive until he learns the whole truth.

    Caleb is played by Sean Paul Lockhart, who in a previous life was Brent Corrigan a porn actor/star. To give him full credit Lockhart gives his all, clothed and often naked -and shows that he put in a very credible performance even given some of the howlers that pepper this whole script.

    Written and directed by Rob Moretti (Crutch) who also cast himself to play the part of Jeremy which was probably not the best decision. Moretti is a competent actor but had he kept behind the camera he may have noticed that there were too many histrionics (don’t get me started on the foul-mouthed speeches of Caleb’s over-the-top mother…). And including such a loud dramatic soundtrack will (sadly) not drown out some of the wince making script.

    There’s a message in here somewhere about child abuse and how it can create monsters about the victims too, but the oddest thing about a movie with a title like this, is none of it seemed remotely truthful at all.

    If you are a fan of Brent Corrigan than you will like seeing him all grown up and showing so successfully that he has a life beyond porn. His wardrobe/costume provider quite rightly gets its own mention in the Credits: it’s Andrew Christian.

  • FILM REVIEW | The Normal Heart

    ★★★★★ | The Normal Heart
    Larry Kramer is perpetually angry. This prominent loud-mouthed writer and gay activist has been shouting out his highly personal take on some of life’s iniquities and inequalities for the past 40 years and has made himself famously unpopular.

    It was his exasperation with the apathy of the gay community when the AIDS scare first started that made him co-found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in his living room in 1981. And it was his unfettered bursts of outrage against an indifferent and immovable culture and a bureaucratic stonewall that got him unceremoniously forced out of the organisation just two years later.

    Retiring to Europe to lick his wounds, Kramer sat down and wrote an autobiographical piece of his whole experience of those past constantly changing years. It opened Off Broadway in 1985 when the AIDS Epidemic had really started to take a tight grip in New York (and many other major cities) and ‘The Normal Heart’ became the seminal play of the period. It would be another 6 years before Kushner’s ‘Angels of America’ would be seen.

    Now nearly some three decades later the play finally makes it to the silver screen after many false starts and broken promises, but along the way it has not lost a single iota of its potency with its powerful story that never fails to stun its audience into sheer silence.

    The movie opens on a typical care-free speedo-clad beach in Fire Island summer in the late 1970’s where sex is the first and second thing on the minds on this happy gay crowd. When one of their number suddenly collapses without warning on the sand no-one has the slightest idea that he is one of the early victims of what the New York Times will later describe as GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) i.e. the Gay Cancer.

    As the virus spreads writer Ned Weeks played by Mark Ruffalo (Kramer’s ‘stand in’) tracks down Dr Emma Brockner (Julia Roberts) who is the first physician in NY dealing solely with the epidemic and she simply cannot cope. She is overwhelmed with the increasing number of patients, with the indifference of the medical community who in denial, refuse to help or provide funds; and the apathy of the gay community who refuse to give up their newly gained hedonistic liberty to stop having sex just because this disabled doctor says it could kill them.

    Brockner recognizes a passionate true spirit in Weeks and eggs him to start trying to both persuade the gay community to change their practices and also organize an official support system.

    Even with the figures of gay men getting sick and dying escalating at an unprecedented pace Weeks is frustrated at the very little headway the newly formed GMHC is making. Finding himself as the unofficial spokesman, mainly due to the fact that he is not only the most articulate of the bunch, but his anger at a system that refuses to pitch in and help makes him a compelling anti-Establishment figure that the media are happy to cover.

    It may help them sell newspapers but it doesn’t achieve any of Week’s more lofty ambitions, and in fact only serves as the reason for the Board of GMHC to fight him tooth and nail and try and control his activities. Even with a Mayor, a President and a whole medical community that refuses to do anything to help stop all these men dying, the GMHC still wants to take a very cautious and overly polite approach so as not to upset either anyone in power or a gay community that do not want to curb their lifestyles.

    Whilst all this is going down 30-something-year-old Weeks finds love for the first time in his life in the shape of a younger New York Times Reporter Felix Turner (Matt Bomer). This unlikely seeming couple turn out to be a perfect match and their very passionate relationship is the one happy part of Week’s life even though it is sadly doomed when Turner falls ill and his young life is unseemly ended way before its prime like so many others of his generation.

    The movie ends soon after that (although the story in real life didn’t with Kramer going on to co-found ACT UP the AIDS activist organisation that unapologetically demanded help and support to help fight the plague and whose many successes included the releasing of much needed drugs and funds).

    Kramer’s anger may also have been one of the reasons that it took so long to get this on to our screens, but it was worth every minute of the wait. In Ryan Murphy, the openly gay creator of ‘Glee’ and ‘American Horror Story’, he found a filmmaker who not only put his own money where his mouth was by buying the Rights himself, but he proved to be a collaborator who created a masterpiece movie true to his vision.

    Murphy deserves credit for many things, not least the fact that he took the almost unheard of decision of casting many openly gay actors to play gay men. With not one mis-step in his selection which included the actor & director Joe Mantello as Mickey Marcus (fresh from his Tony nominated turn playing Ned Weeks in the recent Broadway revival); Jim Parsons repeating his role in the same production as Tommy Boatwright; Jonathan Groff, Taylor Kitsch, Alfred Molina, Frank De Julio, and the ultra handsome Matt Bomer as Tyler who quietly shed 40 lbs to play his dying character without any of the inflated brouhaha of a certain Oscar Winner who had trouble mentioning the word AIDS in public!

    Mark Ruffalo gets nominated as an honorary gay for his convincing portrayal of Ned Weeks who was equally passionate berating politicians as he was making love to his boyfriend. And last, but not least, Julia Roberts very competently played the part that Barbra Streisand had lusted after years, the physician who was sadly dabbed as Dr Death.

    With Murphy refusing to shy away from any of Kramer’s rhetoric or the scary visuals of the violent and cruel deaths these young men suffered, this is the story of how it really happened, warts and all. There are no flowery allegories or sightings of Angels as in the Kushner play but just sheer unadulterated screaming and angry rants at a world that we thought may actually kill us all

    If you were around at any of these times from the early 1980’s on, then this powerful heart-wrenching piece will make a lot of unpleasant memories flood back. It is shockingly disturbing and serves to remind one that the nightmares that we lived through were not imagined in the slightest and were very real indeed.

    If it hadn’t been for Larry Kramer’s loud mouth, it would been a whole lot worse. If on the other hand you are approaching this drama having been born after these events then I can only assume that this near apocalyptical scenario may even appear like an historical event that is nothing to do with you. Trust me it does. AIDS may longer be considered a gay plague, but as the closing credits of this movie remind us all too clearly, even now 6000 people are diagnosed with HIV every single day to increase the present world total of 35 million infected. It still affects as us.

    P.S. The last word goes to Murphy when he simply summed it up after this movie was Premiered in NY. with ‘You were right Larry’. I never thought otherwise.

    The Normal Heart airs on 1st June on Sky Atlantic

     

    BUY The Normal Heart on Amazon

    BUY The Normal Heart on iTunes

  • FILM REVIEW | My Last Round

    ★★★★ | My Last Round

    Soon after middle-aged Octavio begins his romance with his young lover Hugo life gets complicated for both of them.

    Octavio is told he must give up boxing because he has a medical condition that could cause a brain hemorrhage, and Hugo gets fired from his job as he got the boss’s daughter pregnant. Determined to put this all behind them they take off to Santiago, the nearest big city, to start a new life together.

    Octavio gets a gig cutting hair at a traditional barbers shop but as Hugo fails to find work he ends up at home all day feeling sorry for himself. It puts something of a strain on the men’s relationship as both of them feel unfulfilled and unhappy with their lot. It doesn’t improve when Octavio, missing the excitement of the ring, accepts another boxing match, whilst at the same time Hugo, now finally employed, starts to get entangled with his new boss’s daughter.

    It turns out that both men quickly regret the new choices that they have made as they were done for all the wrong reasons. In trying to retain their own heavily masculine identities and their independence they inevitably put at risk the one thing that in the end was the more important than all the others i.e. their relationship with each other.

    The fact that this story is about two poor working class Chilean men sets it apart from most gay themed movies and the sheer brutality that prize-fighter Octavio puts himself through in the ring, that is shown here in bloodied detail, is not something we expect to see in a movie which is about a very tender and loving relationship between two very different men. There is a finality to their story which writer/director Julio Jorquera Arriagada makes sure we are aware of with the very poignant opening scenes of a funeral, but he very wisely does not attempt to draw any conclusions. It is very much what is and that is both tough and sad.

    Well cast and well acted it’s a tragic love story beautifully told.

  • FILM REVIEW | Tom At The Farm

    ★★★★ | Tom At The Farm

    Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan may be sick of being constantly described as a wunderkind, but when you are just 24 years old like he is and have already made four head-turning mind-blowing Award winning movies, then the description is more than apt. Not content with writing and directing each of them he usually loves to edit, design the costumes, create the music, and now in his latest one, a taut psychological thriller, he stars in it too.

    Tom is grieving the death of his boyfriend Guy (known to his family as Guillaume) and he travels to a rather bleak part of Northern Quebec to attend the funeral and share his loss with the family he has never even met. He quickly discovers from a very scary encounter with Francis, Guilliame’s older brother, that not only was he ‘not out’ to his mother, but that Francis had actually created an imaginary girlfriend so that she would never suspect. In the first of many threats, Francis menacingly insists that Tom stays and keeps quiet about being gay and also adds some credence to the existence of Guillaume’s ‘girlfriend’ before he then goes from the family farm for good, never to return.

    To avoid doing just this, immediately after the funeral Tom tries to leave to go back to the city but in his panic he forgets his luggage and turns the car around to head back to the Farm to retrieve it. In doing so he confronts Francis and so refuses to go along with the subterfuge, which results in first of the beatings he will get at the hands of this psychotic bully. It also soon becomes obvious that despite all the violence both men are attracted to each other…Tom to Francis despite all the vicious physical abuse… and Francis to Tom even though he is bitterly angry about his own repressed homosexuality.

    Tom settles into some sort of routine and looks almost set to stay at the Farm and when he actually arranges for the fake girlfriend to come visit to appease the mother, he refuses to leave even when it is obvious to her and Tom that he is in real danger if he stays there a moment longer with the mad sociopath brother. He claims that it’s because that Francis could not manage the Farm on the own, but it’s clear that he actually is drawn to Francis’s deranged behaviour.

    It is a superb fist-clenching piece with an atmosphere of real fear that never ever lets up. I am not sure what was worse, knowing what Francis was actually capable of (and there is much more that I haven’t even touched on) or the realisation of what a pliable and willing Tom would accept. In amongst all of this, there is one most glorious scene where the two men tango together in the barn where the intimacy will only give way to violence again. The high pitch tension never ever gives a clue as to how it will develop or end up.

    Mr. Dolan sporting tousled dirty blond hair turns in a convincingly effective performance as Tom, and it is matched by veteran Canadian actress Lise Roy playing the mother with such a defiant tone, and also Pierre Yves- Cardinal as a very intimidating latently gay Francis.

    I am unashamedly a big fan of Mr. Dolan’s work and have never subscribed to the notion sometimes proffered that he is always about style over substance… the reason I am passionate about the work is the fact that he combines both so very well. However with this movie you can sense a more mature quality, and I believe that Mr. Dolan really can quite rightly claim the crown of being an out queer Hitchcock.

    P.S. The only fact I have given this a less than perfect score is there were two strands of the plot that puzzled me. I couldn’t believe that the mother could have been so completely unaware of what was going on in either of her son’s life. And secondly would an urbane copy editor at a city ad agency really take to farming so eagerly as Tom did?

    It did however won the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and is a totally unmissable movie.

  • FILM REVIEW | In The Name Of

    Father Adam is the pastor of a minute parish in the hinterlands of Poland where he has opened a centre for ‘difficult’ teenage ex-reformatory boys. In this bleak countryside he, and his lay helper Michel, have fashioned their small group of unruly charges into almost responsible young men.

    They play football, go swimming and work together but despite his firm control over them, there is always this underlying feeling that tempers could rail up over the slightest excuse at any time, and so there is always a veiled threat of potential violence.

    There is little to do in this remote hamlet and Michel’s bored and neglected wife puts the moves of a rather shaken Adam. When he rejects her advances, he does so by explaining it is because he is ‘already taken’, which we assume refers to his Catholic vow of celibacy, and it isn’t until the second part of the story we realise its because he is not attracted to woman at all.

    Adam is always focused on being in control, but when he rushes to the defence of Lukasz a local boy who does odd jobs at the Center on two different occasions, it starts becoming apparent that despite his intentions he has deeper feelings for him. Lukasz is a good-natured young man whose usual silence at first seems to indicate sullenness, but in fact it is he who shows the lonely Priest warmth and openness that green lights what is to follow.

    Before this can happen, Adam tries desperately to repress his feelings by resorting to his old habit of getting rip-roaring drunk on his own, and he turns up the some rock music very loud and dances around the kitchen clutching a picture of the Pope as a partner. If it wasn’t for the fact that he is such a deeply unhappy man, it would be a very funny scene indeed.

    Michel suspects something is amiss and tells the Bishop who lets slip that he had already had to forcibly transfer Adam from his last position. Despite the remarkable success that Adam has made of the Center, his position is considered untenable now, and this will mark the end for him. Or will it?

    This emotional charged drama has an overwhelming sense of such utter sadness for most of the story. The whole piece gels so well because Father Adam (superbly played by Andrzej Chyra) is an engaging, seriously devout priest, generous to a fault to his parishioners, but one who struggles with his human foibles. When he tries to share his secrets with another person… his sister… she wants to be in denial of the reality just like Michel and The Bishop, and it simply reinforces Adam’s feeling of abandonment and hopelessness.

    Lukasz, like the other boys, is a young adult so what we are dealing with here is not paedophilia but a consenting relationship between two man, albeit that one is considerably older. It is his Lukasz’s final resolve that makes him appear mature enough to be a match for the Priest.

    The movie quite rightly won the prestigous Teddy Award at Berlinale (the highest award for a LGBT film) for writer/director Malgoska Szumowska who is back in form after that rather odd ‘Elles’. A nod to her cinematographer Michal Englert (also co-screenwriter) for the stunning haunting feel he gave to the bleak outside landscapes in particular, and another to young Mateusz Kosciukiewicz who looked more than tad like Jesus and who played Lukasz.

    What sets this remarkable and unpredictable movie apart from others that have dealt with repressed Catholic priests dealing with their homosexuality is Szumowska’s very real understanding of Adam’s personal struggle and the very straightforward way she tells his tale. The fact that its set in the Polish Catholic Church makes it that much braver, and also controversial.

  • FILM REVIEW | Yves Saint Laurent

    ★★★★ | Yves Saint Laurent

    Yves St Laurent was regarded as the most consistently celebrated and influential designer for twenty-five years. He is credited with both spurring Haute Couture’s rise from its 1960’s ashes and with finally rendering Ready-to-Wear reputable. He was unquestionably a genius and it’s no exaggeration at all to state that some of his ‘creations’ were stunning masterpieces.

    He was however, a very troubled and tormented soul. An aspect that this new biopic on M. St Laurent makes a point of labouring on. As a piece of fiction the story of how this timid gentle soul who, at the tender age of 21 took over from his mentor Christian Dior to head up the Couture House is totally compelling. The year is 1957 and his first Collection as Head Designer at Dior catapulted him to international stardom. A year later he met Pierre Bergé, an industrialist who became his lover, and later his business partner after Dior had sacked St Laurent. He and Bergé set up the House of Yves St Laurent together.

    The movie focuses on how St Laurent, who had always been a manic depressive, became heavily dependent on alcohol and drugs just to cope with his daily pressures. As he sought solace (and sex) in the arms of other young men, his exploits landed him in police stations and on newspaper front pages, and he was always being rescued by Bergé who saved the day yet again. The couple spilt up romantically in 1976, a fact that is not mentioned in the movie, but remained business partners until St Laurent’s death from brain cancer in 2008.

    It’s a real treat to see the scenes of St Laurent at work in his Salon watching him create unforgettable pieces that were greatly influenced by his love of non-European culture. Also some of the scenes of almost debauchery when he is out partying with close friends like Karl Lagerfeld and Loulou de la Falaise when he looks like he is actually enjoying himself for a change. However fact and fiction start to really cross wires, and whilst we are expected to believed that this was a man who refused to take responsibility for anything, it’s nigh on impossible to believe that Bergé was such a saintly figure who never ever even dreamed about sleeping around or sniffing a line of coke or anything remotely bad.

    The movie based on Laurence Benaim’s biography was made with with Bergé’s ‘approval’ who has always had a reputation as a control freak and in the same way he micro-managed YSL, he has obviously totally manipulated the way that both he and St Laurent are portrayed in this movie. It’s such a pity as I believe that the real truth of this remarkable and tempestuous relationship is a great story still waiting to be told.

    Maybe it will be in Bertrand Bonello’s new movie ‘Saint Laurent’ currently being made now without Berge’s approval.

    Fact or fiction, there were still two incredible performances from the lead actors Guillaume Gallienne as Bergé, and Pierre Niney who was completely pitch perfect as the vulnerable St. Laurent.

    There was one remarkable touching scene when St Laurent arrives home, the worse for wear after an all night bender and has collapsed in the bathroom. As Bergé helps him, St Laurent tearfully confesses that he loves his new boyfriend Jacques, but that Berge will always be the love of his life. And you really want to believe that this indeed really was the case.

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