Andrew Worsdale Movie of the week
`God, yet another pooftah movie,” groaned a fellow critic at the preview of Turkish Bath last week. Well, yeah, gay and lesbian cinema is booming – even the studios are making films with homosexual themes.
Universal Pictures made To Wong Foo, an inferior drag queen movie with Wesley Snipes in tights, and Philadelphia, which had Tom Hanks dying of Aids (although he never seemed to have sex with his lover, played by Antonio Banderas). And then there was The Birdcage, United’s remake of the French comedy La Cages aux Folles.
In the past, films with a homosexual theme were full of anguish. There was Cruising with Al Pacino as a policeman who infiltrates New York’s sadomasochistic gay world to catch a psychopath; Robert Aldrich’s bitchy melodrama, The Killing of Sister George, with Beryl Reid as an ageing lesbian actress who loses her role in a television series; and The Boys in the Band, which was notorious for being filled with self-pity and self- loathing.
But times have changed, with directors like Pedro Almodovar and Gus van Sant openly admitting they are gay, the success of films like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and, of course, the much-hyped life of the New Queer Cinema where film-makers like Van Sant, Derek Jarman, Monica van Treut and Gregg Arakki have given up the `”woe is me, the homosexual” theme to make way for more refreshing original works that show the real life of homosexuals with characters that are young and outspoken.
Arraki’s The Living End was banned in South Africa for two weeks because of its disturbing finale, which has a homosexual man being sodomised with a crucifix by neo-Nazi homophobes.
The new gay- and lesbian-themed films go beyond their characters’ sexual orientation and deal with issues that affect them: Aids, coming out of the closet, sexual desire tempered with post-Aids anxiety and the coming together of gay men and lesbians as a unified group.
This rise of new gay cinema resulted in what gay critic Raymond Murray called, “A cacophonous chorus of `Yeah, we’re queer, what the fuck you going to do about it?'”
British magazine Time Out’s Paul Burston, who is a homosexual, said: “Some people describe these films as `negative’, `dangerous’, `politically incorrect’. Some lump them together and call them New Queer Cinema. I just call them fabulous.”
The Opposite of Sex and Turkish Bath, which open this week, are both films with a homosexual theme. In one, a gay man is seduced by a teenage girl and “turns” heterosexual, while in the other a “straight” man becomes gay – think of them as a cool queer double- feature.
The Opposite of Sex is a well-written comedy-drama with Christina Ricci as a teenage vamp who ruins the lives of all around her by taking off with her brother’s live-in lover. Martin Donovan plays the rich brother to perfection and Ricci is sassy as the double- crossing bitch.
Written and directed by Don Roos, who penned Single White Female, The Opposite of Sex is a perfect mix of comedy and film noir. It is dark and twisted, but undeniably clever, cultic and fun. Ster-Kinekor is releasing it with 10 prints, evidence of the fact that gay- and lesbian-themed movies can take the distance if they are intelligent, fun and above all cool.
More arty but as interesting is Turkish Bath, which is only getting a release of two prints (Rosebank Mall and Cape Town’s Cavendish Square).
Alessandro Gassman plays Francesco, an unhappily married Italian yuppie. His life changes when he is left a Turkish bath (Hammam) in Istanbul by a long- lost aunt.
It is a bit of a clichd story, but Turkish director and co-writer Ferzan Ozpetek infuses the film with solid storytelling and much attention to detail.
What is most impressive is that Ozpetek never completely gives the game away: he teases the audience with the intricacies of plot development.
Don’t expect steamy homoeroticism in either film; for that you better rent Jarman’s Edward II or Almodovar’s Law of Desire. These new releases are solid proof that gay issues are becoming more mainstream and certainly more sympathetic. No more ranting, no more neurosis – just solid film-making.