It was like a gender shadow walk through tangential cultural construction done with minority self imaging, oppositional film practices, bent aesthetics and queer sensibilities. The 26th British Film Institute's Lesbian and Gay Film Festival recently besieged me with its trajectory of images populating the other world of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Trans sexual and Intersexuals, traversing a wide window of mainstream potboilers to art movies, documentaries, avant-garde erotic videos and transgressive experimenta.
Being a bi-curious woman, I always thought of myself as a deceitful woman. I would, though, confess to myself that “deceiving” is a way to address one's desires audaciously. When Mia who was already engaged to Tim falls hopelessly in love with openly gay Frida in the Swedish film “Kiss me”, directed by Alexandra-Therese Keining, the portrayal of love is much the same as love in its innate form regardless of the gender of people in question. A typical romantic drama with strong emotions and sharp conflicts, it surprisingly ends victoriously when everyone would want the tale to end tragically. The enchanting actors Ruth and Liv charm you so much, you forgive the rather contrived moments of instant attractions and quirky situations.
Myth busted
Though President Ahmadinejad has declared that Iranian homosexuality doesn't exist, it sure does here in Maryam Keshavarz's “Circumstance”. Chronicling the coming of age of two young women in contemporary Iran, the film has picked up various awards in the festival circuit, including the audience award at Sundance. At the centre of “Circumstance” are two girl dreamers from two ends of the country which officially sanctions harassment and abuse of LGBT persons by private actors and police and the religious society, which sees them as diseased, criminals or corrupt agents of western culture. When Mehran the Zealot, transformed from a washed out Junkie, installs a surveillance camera to monitor his own family and Shireen, one of those girls in love, whom he lusts after, the CCTV becomes the metaphor of the two eyes of the fundamentalist state and religion.
From the ages of Genet's classic Chant d' amour, Gay cinema characters are still trying to break away from their own prison of sadism, guilt and repression. “Beauty” (Skoonheid), a South African film by Director Oliver Hermanus, is a provocative piece on closeted desires. Refusing to be judgmental, the film which had won the Queer Palm at the Cannes 2011, challenges the viewer to understand the extreme life situations when one battles his own identity for a long time. Belgian director Bavo Defurne, a regular author of gay love and loss themes in his shorts, makes his debut feature again with “North Sea Texas”. With a gorgeous cast and exemplary cinematography, the film reaches the heights of poetry in depicting the loneliness and despair that the lead teen Pim's experiences in his process of coming out with his sexual orientation.
“Pariah”, directed by Dee Rees, “Leave it on the Floor”, directed by Sheldon Larry, and “Stud Life”, directed by Campbell X came to the centre-stage of the gala as a mark of celebration of Black Queer Cinema both in authorship and content. “Pariah” is a delight to watch because of its very personal filming style and soulful indulgences. When the director explained in her sessions how she wanted her autobiographical character “Alike” to be filmed with lot of “peeping” or “eavesdropping” camera movements, behind or between objects, with long lenses that further enhance the sense of her being secretive and hiding. Alike is a chameleon, and the entire camera movements and production design around her serve to amplify that. Lighting is used in such a way that Alike is “painted” with whatever colours are predominating at the moment in her environment. In the nightclub she's “purple”; on the bus she's “green”; in the bathroom she's “orange”, etc. She turns “white” towards the end; she's “sunlight” in the final scene of the film when she declares as a poet, “I am not broken, I am free.”
Vogue film
“Leave it on the Floor”, touches on the low lifestyle, bullying, and homelessness that endure among black LGBT youth (Los Angeles has almost 2000 African-American LGBT kids living on the street right now, more than twice the number of homeless white LGBT kids.) Inspired by Jennie Livingston's documentary, “Paris Is Burning”, Director Sheldon Larry spent a passionate 20 years to make this film. Worthy of the emotional investment, this vogue film comes across as a swanky, hot, musical. “Stud Life” moves out of the “coming out” narratives to the unknown subculture of lesbians of colour. Multicultural and polysexual nature of London feels wickedly real. Funny and playfully dialogued, “Stud Life” is special with its warmth and humaneness, though very loud at times.
The Gay lib documentaries “Love Free or Die” on the first openly gay Archbishop Gene Robinson and “Vito” on the pioneering gay militant Vito Russo, who is also a supreme chronicler of Lesbian and Gay aspirations and betrayals on the silver screen with his cult book Celluloid Closet , are ultimately films about hope, celebrating the power of the community to rally together, challenging the churches to courts to broadcasters to ministries and motivate political changes. “Sexing the Transman”, rudely shakes up both the transmale community and adult film world with the world's first ever female to male transsexual porn star Buck Angel while “Girl or Boy, My sex is not my Gender”, spans as a fag spotter from Paris to Barcelona to New York to San Francisco.
Asia aside
What makes me sick and angry is the dearth of Asian authors and themes in the entire schedule of the festival. “365 without 377”, a documentary on three defiant Indian activists heading to celebrate the first anniversary of the scrapping of Section 377 of Indian Penal Code (which criminalised homosexuality) is a powerful account of LGBT lives in Mumbai, though directed by the Italian director, Adele Tulli. I wish to believe that this vacuum is due to the fact that the majority of the 80 countries where homosexuality is an offence fall within the map of Asia. It reminds us of the fact that the fight for equality for LGBT community is not just a matter of justice, and we need to move on.
Queer cinema has also come a long way in using porn as a platform to practise political activism. The punk feminist porn shown here fearlessly explores a multitude of queer possibilities with their luminous images about sexuality, the body, identity and history.
Director and porn actor Marit Ostberg's stunningly beautiful “Sisterhood” is a reflexive imagery on knowing the obvious. The Homo Erotica of Peter de Rome sends shock waves into the hetero minds and thoughts, but also puts them at ease eventually.
Not that I haven't seen a penis before, but I seriously felt that every image was a riot, thrashing the practised gazes of cinema. If I have to subtitle this cultural imagery, then “it is the taste of rainbow”. If I have to soundtrack it, then it is my own hip hop “I am too sexy to be straight”!
