Last week I attended the opening gala of Toronto's Inside Out LGBT Film and Video Festival. The film was Patrik, Age 1.5, a Swedish romantic comedy/drama that had previously screened at TIFF to great reviews.
The plot, although nothing radically new, was a definite crowd-pleaser: a gay couple's attempt at adoption goes awry when a typo on their documentation leads them to believe that they'll be receiving a one-and-a-half year-old instead of a fifteen-year-old. Think Canada's Breakfast with Scot, but substitute the flamboyant, knitting Scot with Patrik, a troubled teen with a rough past and a tendency to utter homophobic slurs and pummel the neighbours' children. Naturally, Patrik throws a wrench into the relationship between sensitive physician Göran, who warms to the boy, and his bearish, rough-around-the-edges, heavy-drinking husband Sven, who wants Patrik gone from their house immediately.
Although the film's trajectory and conclusion are predictable, this familiar Anne of Green Gables-esque "strange child initially disrupts but ultimately changes everyone's lives for the better" storyline is treated with such warmth and humour that I found myself completely charmed. A near-perfect blend of comedy and drama, Swedish director Ella Lemhagen never allows her film to become maudlin, nor does she resort to stereotype or classless gay jokes in attempts to get laughs. Thomas Ljungman is a perfect Patrik, totally convincing in his angsty moments and when cracks in his armour begin to appear, and Gustaf Skarsgård's charming and endearing Göran is easily the film's most winsome character. Watch for the scene when, in a rare moment of outward anger, an enraged Göran destroys a public garbage bin and then, realizing he was being watched, stoops sheepishly down to pick up the trash he'd scattered.
Funny, sincere, and refreshing in its depiction of gay relationships, Patrik, Age 1.5 is worth a viewing. Hopefully it will be available on DVD shortly. Until then, watch the trailer here:
Billed as "a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to," the international premiere of Kirby Dick's Outrage was my second stop at this year's HotDocs festival. This aptly titled film successfully provoked its namesake in me, my companion, and judging by their reaction, a majority of the audience members.
Unfamiliar with many US politicians, I was nonetheless amazed at the litany of closeted, conservative homos who have consistently backed movements to deny gay-friendly bills including the right to adoption and marriage, employment protection, anti hate crime legislation, and public funding for AIDS research. Outed politicians include Larry Craig, an Idaho senator who was caught cruising in a public restroom; Charlie Crist, twice-married governor of Florida and potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012; Ed Koch, former mayor of NYC; and Jim McCrery, a Louisiana-based politician. As one outspoken critic said about Washington, DC: "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a gay staffer."
Instead of simply resorting to a facile demonization of these loathsome legislators (which, in fairness, would have been easy to do and probably quite fun to watch), Dick chooses instead to take a more intelligent and complex approach, exploring the larger societal issues that keep certain politicians jammed tightly in the closet. Dick opens his film by exploring the political climate in Idaho, circa 1955, when Larry Craig was growing up: a public sex scandal involving gay men and youth triggered newspaper headlines that read "Crush the monster!". Indeed, in an environment like that, who would want to be openly gay? Dick also spends a lot of time interviewing James McGreevey, a former NJ governor (and first/only openly gay governor in US history) who resigned upon the revelation that he had had an extramarital affair with another man, a liaison that subsequently led to McGreevey's divorce. A highly sympathetic and admirable figure in Dick's film, McGreevey explains how, as a child who knew he was gay, he would spend time researching homosexuality at the library, internalizing the messages of shame and hate that he would uncover. Eventually, he realized that his attitude towards his own sexuality was so shameful and unhealthy because gays were being denied the right to be open with their sexuality in shameless, healthy, and public ways. Although the hypocrisy of these politicians is deplorable, Dick makes the valid point that the social conditions that permit and encourage this hypocrisy are at the root of this insidious, dangerous homophobia.
Another interesting figure is Michael Rogers, a blogger who dedicates himself to aggressively and publicly outing closeted conservative politicians. He serves as the thread that connects many of these individual stories, and a fascinating point of discussion: although it's satisfying to see hypocrites exposed for who they are, does this end justify his invasive and aggressive means? At what point do Rogers' methods become as harmful as the anti-gay laws backed by these politicians, if at all? I found myself intrigued if occasionally ambivalent.
Although Outrage is perhaps not extraordinarily shocking or radical by Canadian standards, I hope this film causes a stir south of the border. The only other film of Dick's I had seen is the fascinating/disturbing/eye-opening Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist(which warrants a gander if you have the stomach to handle, as the title suggests, extreme masoschism .. and I mean nailing-your-junk-to-a-wooden-board extreme), and with Outrage Dick again proves himself an accessible and engaging storyteller. Aside from succeeding as the "searing indictment" it claims to be, Dick's film provides inspiring soundbites from important figures in queer history, like Larry Kramer, founder of ACT Up, who suggests that "Activism is about anger. Activism is about responding to something you know is wrong, and you don't like it." Harvey Milk makes an appropriate appearance close to the end of the film, minutes after we are reminded by a contemporary activist that "the most important thing a gay person can do in terms of social justice is just be out." His words ring very true, especially as Dick's film moves to a close.
My first stop at this year's HotDocs film festival was Jerusalem, courtesy of Yun Suh's eye-opening City of Borders. Jerusalem's only gay bar, Shushan, is the thread that unites Suh's colourful subjects: Adam, a former Israeli soldier who was stabbed while marching in Jerusalem's pride parade; Boodi, a Muslim who faces life-threatening persecution in his hometown on the West Bank; Sa'ar, Shushan's founder, who also fights for queer rights on Jerusalem's overwhelmingly orthodox city council; and Samira and Ravit, a lesbian Israeli/Palestinian couple who struggle for acceptance from their families and community.
Most poignant was the film's tense opening scene, which features Boodi and his friends clambering over fences and through barbed wire in pitch darkness to cross the strictly guarded border separating Palestine and Jerusalem, home of the Utopian Shushan. In Shushan, Boodi says, there are no borders: gays and lesbians, Arabs and Jews dance, mingle, and love one another; one night at Shushan is, to Boodi, worth the danger of being arrested for trespassing. Unlike others, Boodi maintains, he and his friends don't sneak across the border to drop bombs -- they're just looking for a fun night in a space where they are at total liberty to be themselves.
The film is at times moving and upsetting, but also quite funny. In spite of their politically and religiously loaded relationship, Samira and Ravit in particular maintain an incredibly admirable sense of humour, warmth, and strength of will. Boodi, the most flamboyant of the bunch, alternately charms with his closed-door bedroom dance parties and devastates when, ultimately, he must give up his homeland and family to live the life he desires with the freedom he craves. And Sa'ar, who persists with his work on city council in spite of frequent death threats, faces difficult decisions about Shushan's future when he begins to struggle financially.
An ode to the human spirit and a reminder of the relative freedoms we enjoy as Canadians, City of Borders is definitely worth a look, at HotDocs or on DVD. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer right here:
