Eyes Wide Open

As it started out, I had high hopes for this Israeli film. Set in the strict Orthodox community, I thought this would be a ground-breaking movie that would show what it was like to be gay and Orthodox.

And as it continued, I hoped that Aaron, the protagonist, would find the strength to stand up for Ezri, his beloved, and to ensure that they could be together.

Unfortunately, as is typical for LGBTQ books and films, this didn’t happen. I won’t spoil it for you, but I was so disappointed by the film. I felt the director chickened out and didn’t go deep enough into the subject.

Gayby

We watched a silly, light film called Gayby. In it, a straight woman decides to have a baby with her gay best friend. Somewhat strangely, they decide to make this baby the traditional way, but they don’t have much luck at first, so the film follows them on their journey.

 

The main character does eventually get pregnant, but the question is whether the baby is actually her best friend’s or not.

 

It is an easy-to-watch film that has some funny moments. I get tired of the gay stereotypes (the effeminate guy who always has a witty remark, for example), but the film clearly was going for laughs. If you’ve had a bad day, it’s a good movie for an evening with some popcorn.

Out at the Wedding

This film is very silly, so if you are going to watch it, you need to be prepared for a ridiculous plot and some less than stellar acting (Reginald VelJohnson is good, and one wishes Mink Stole had been encouraged to camp it up a bit).

 

Basically, the main character, Alex, is a woman in love with a man. So far so uncomplicated. But Alex doesn’t seem to care much for her family, so she’s told the man that her entire family is dead. Meanwhile, she rarely sees her father and sister (her mother actually is dead). Somehow, when she goes to her sister’s wedding, her best friend accidentally tells everyone there that Alex is gay, when in fact it’s the best friend who is.

 

Alex’s sister doesn’t take kindly to being upstaged at her wedding, but she is sympathetic to the idea that Alex felt unable to tell the family about being a lesbian. Rather than let her sister believe that she ruined the wedding for no reason, Alex lets her sister continue to believe that she is gay and that she’s in a relationship with a half-black, half-Jewish woman named Dana (in fact her boyfriend is a half-black, half-Jewish man named Dana).

 

When her sister comes to visit her, she ends up hiring an actual lesbian to pretend to be this half-black, half-Jewish woman named Dana. As you can imagine, much ridiculousness ensues.

 

The whole premise is unbelievable, but if you can get past that, it’s an easy watch. Alex ends up reconciled with her family, one woman gets her man, and another woman gets her woman. Happily ever after.

 

The most I can say is that at least it’s not depressing and at least it doesn’t feature a predatory lesbian, as many gay films seem to.

Four-Faced Liar

Yet another lesbian film that was obvious from the beginning. One character has a boyfriend and has clearly never thought about her sexuality. Then she meets another young woman who is a raging dyke (sleeps with different women every night; oh, and she wears men’s boxers and vests and waistcoats, and sits with her legs spread – stereotypical much?). Guess what happens?

Weekend

Why are films featuring gay men often better than those featuring gay women? That’s something I’ve wondered as I’ve seen bad lesbian film after bad lesbian film. If it’s got a teacher-student plot, it’s probably a (bad) lesbian movie. If one character abuses her position of power to seduce the other, it’s probably a (bad) lesbian movie.

I was thus excited by Weekend. It’s about a guy called Russ who has a one-night stand that turns into something more. I loved how the film was intense and sweet, and it really portrayed that early-relationship awkwardness. I also liked that the film was romantic but not overly so, and it didn’t have the expected ending.

The one thing that I didn’t like was the sheer amount of drugs and alcohol in the film. Maybe it’s realistic to the gay scene and the twenty-something age group, but I felt that the two men could have had the same experiences with just a bit less alcohol and cocaine running through them.

I wish there’d be more lesbian films like this, with strong, believable, likeable characters, and an interesting storyline. Until then, I’m going to have to keep watching films like Weekend, and I’ll keep an eye out for its director, Andrew Haigh, and leading actors, Tom Cullen and Chris New.

Bloomington

God, yet another film with a predatory lesbian teacher who seduces a student. I don’t understand why people keep making these films. Is it is because lesbians are seen as predatory? Is there really a plethora of women who were seduced by their teachers/bosses/other people in a role of power? Is this kind of story what appeals  to (male) viewers?

Also, why is it that so many lesbians were “created” because of absent parents or bad relationships with their parents? That’s another part of this film.

There isn’t a lot I can say about this film other than that the script was ridiculous and the acting was nothing special. I’m really sick of these stories and really would love to see a lesbian filmmaker make something unusual and interesting.

Here Come the Girls

We had heard that the short films that comprise Here Come the Girls were good, so we eagerly anticipated some viewing pleasure on a Friday night. Alas, we were stunned by how relentlessly negative and trading in stereotypes these films were, so I definitely wouldn’t recommend them.

 The first of the films had acting so bad that we almost turned off the DVD. We persevered and the second film, Private Life, which is set in 1950s Yorkshire, was the star of the series. The production values were higher here and the story was more interesting. Also, it had a happy ending.

The other films were mostly desperately unhappy (a mother trying to force her lesbian daughter to be feminine; a young lesbian killed by a falling horseshoe (see the significance of that “lucky” object); an older, sick lesbian hampered with a mentally ill or perhaps demented partner; domestic violence, where a femme woman didn’t want to go to the police about her supposedly “butch” girlfriend), or they were based on stereotypes so old-fashioned as to be embarrassing (a butch narrator talking about how she’s “stone” and wants to treat her “femme” woman right; a femme wanting to use a dildo on her unwilling partner, who thinks butches don’t do that kind of thing).

Happy Birthday, which was the strap-on film just mentioned, was so ridiculous that I could only hope it was tongue-in-cheek. If it was serious, then I feel sad that so many young lesbians apparently still think they have to be either butch or femme and that there are such clear-cut roles.

In short, so to speak, I felt that I wasted an evening on these films. I hope someone will starting making some more challenging, positive, up-to-date LGBTQ films.

My Friend From Faro

This is a German film about a twenty-something lesbian stuck in a small town, working in a factory, unable to be her true self. I didn’t quite get how Mel’s family was so blind to who she really was, nor how Jenny, the girl she had a relationship with, didn’t see past what Mel told her. Still, Mel was a strong character and the actor who played her did a good job at portraying what she was going through.

 M wasn’t so keen on this film, but I thought it was rather sweet. There was the expected revelation and related bullying/violence and it wasn’t a surprising or new story in any way, but it was nice to see that things ended up fairly okay for Mel despite everything. As M pointed out, it’s tiring to see LGBTQ films that have the typical problems in them, and this one wasn’t an exception, but it did end on a positive note for Mel.

 

Tomboy

We saw the French film Tomboy not long ago. It had gotten great reviews and I was very curious about it.

I liked the acceptance of the main character implied in the film and I also liked the sister’s acceptance of the main character. I did, however, question the precocity of the children, especially the little sister. The conversations among the children didn’t always ring true.

But while I liked the main character and the way the film was done, a larger issue for me was that I didn’t understand the character. I didn’t know how s/he saw her/himself. Is this a child who simply wanted to “pass” as a boy? Is it a child who feels that s/he is in the wrong body? Is it a child who is in fact the “tomboy” of the title? Was this a stage? What was going on, really?

I felt it was a trans character, but I didn’t have enough confirmation of that, and the title seemed to speak against that idea. M saw herself in the character and though the character was a girl who just wanted to play with the boys, do “boy things”, and be accepted by the boys (i.e. not as a boy per se). It simply wasn’t clear. The ending certainly made me question my idea that it was a trans film, because it seemed to say that the character was moving on, “maturing”, and living as a girl now.

I suppose one reason why I love literature is that it allows you to get inside the head of the character/s. Film doesn’t allow this as much; it’s much more external. But if the main character had spoken more in Tomboy, maybe it would have been easier to follow what was going on.

Despite that, I actually really enjoyed the film and thought it was mostly well done.

Heartbeats

I went to see Heartbeats, a new queer film, a couple of months ago, and I was pretty impressed. The director, Xavier Dolan, is only in his early 20s and I thought he did a good job of making an artistic, engaging film. Okay, sometimes it was a bit overly artsy, as though he really, really, really wanted it to be beautiful and cool. But it was a really attractive film, so I didn’t begrudge him his flounces (or the fact that the character that he played was stronger and got more screen time than the female character).

Basically, I liked the story of the two friends who both fall for the same guy, and I liked the twist at the end (which I won’t spoil for you). The music Dolan included was great too. I especially enjoyed Bang Bang by Dalida.

This was one of the better LGBT films that I’ve seen in recent months, so I’d recommend it.

Queer Films

A friend gave me and M a trial membership to Love Film and so we’ve been seeing some films. It’s been enjoyable and I think the service is really good – it’s much cheaper and more convenient than going to a place like Blockbuster, and you can keep the films as long as you want.

Anyway, we’ve been trying to see some LGBT films and one of the first ones was “I Can’t Even Think Straight”. I wouldn’t recommend this one; we both found the acting quite stiff and poor, although some of that may have been due to the less-than-realistic dialogue that plagued parts of the film. It’s about a wealthy Middle Eastern woman, Tala, who is in the midst of her fourth engagement. She meets an English woman of Indian ancestry, Leyla, and the predictable happens. They never really discuss their sexuality or what is happening to them; Tala feels she can’t break off yet another engagement and that she can’t be out in her family and society. Leyla manages to come out to her family (which causes some terrible acting from the woman who plays her mother) and finds another girlfriend.

I won’t tell you how it ends, but you can probably guess. I don’t know if we need lots of coming-out films; I’d rather see films about queers who are happily going about their lives. But I suppose this movie might still be useful or inspirational in some cultures.

We watched this with my mother when she was visiting and she thought the acting and storyline were so bad that she just sat next to us and read a book instead.