Yesterday evening the LLGFF (London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival) opened with a diverse range of shorts and high profile queer-centric film and documentary. I’ve listed some of the festival highlights below:

Tied Hands

Uzi, a gay former dancer dying of Aids, is being nursed through his final days by his mother in her Tel Aviv apartment. The pain is such that only marijuana can relieve it, but his supply is exhausted – a predicament that pushes his usually law-abiding parent out onto the streets in search of illegal drugs.
Dan Wolman’s film derives much of its power from Gila Almagor’s deeply affecting portrayal of a woman whose resolve plunges her into a dramatic and sometimes dangerous odyssey. The incongruity of her appearance in a world of nightclubs, cruising grounds and back alleys gives early scenes a blackly comic edge, but as her every attempt to ‘score’ is frustrated, her plight becomes truly heartrending. Moreover, revelations en route from Uzi’s old friends elicit regret over her failure to challenge her husband’s homophobia, and prompt a confession that it was only after his death that she felt able to attend one of Uzi’s performances. Punctuated by glimpses of the young man on stage, this haunting portrait of a mother’s love for a son who has in many ways been unknowable to her cannot, obviously, offer a happy ending, but does arrive at a peace of sorts.

Savage Grace

Alongside the likes of Gus Van Sant and Gregg Araki (whose latest films, Paranoid Park and Smiley Face respectively, are also featured in the Festival programme), Tom Kalin spearheaded the New Queer Cinema of the early Nineties. A movement characterised by an unflinching treatment of all aspects of the gay experience, Kalin’s contribution was his bold take on the infamous Leopold and Leob murder case, Swoon. Now, in his second major feature, he turns his attention to another real-life killing with a gay dimension - that of Barbara Daly Baekeland, former wife of Bakelite plastics heir Brooks Baekeland, in London by her son Tony in 1972.

An American abroad, striving for acceptance by European high society, the purposeless Barbara forms a stiflingly close bond with her child, clouding the teenage Tony’s sexual identity. And when his indolent father leaves Barbara for Blanca, a young woman with whom Tony has begun an affair, moral meltdown ensues. Caring for his devastated mother becomes Tony’s “inheritance”, and her association with a handsome gay escort, to whom both are attracted, leads to ultimately fatal transgressions. With Julianne Moore reliable as ever as the unstable Barbara, and newcomer Eddie Redmayne admirably understated as the adrift Tony, Kalin’s sumptuously shot film refuses to judge, coolly detailing the decadence that drove a privileged young man to kill.

Boystown

The titular town is the Chueca, Madrid’s fabulous gay district. But it’s not quite fabulous enough for urbane estate agent Victor, who’s ousting the area’s elderly widows so that homo hipness and metrosexual minimalism can rule. And if a fat cheque doesn’t persuade them, he’ll put the squeeze on the old dears in a shockingly literal way. Scuppering his plans, though, are lovable, blue-collar bear couple Rey and Leo, who, having inherited the apartment next door from one of Victor’s victims, unwittingly move Rey’s battleaxe of a mother right into the fray.
With its cast of swarthy men and strident women, this winsome black comedy has more than a whiff of Almodóvar about it. But more accurately it’s a neat satire on the tyranny of gentrification, personified by the affluent, label-loving and gym-sculpted Victor. There no room in his world for the superannuated, or even the great unwaxed, like Rey and Leo. Yet in spite of Victor’s scheming, and Rey’s mother’s attempts to split them up, these bears refuse to be cowed - and remind us all that ‘homo’ isn’t short for homogeneity.

You Belong To Me

Hung up on his non-committal boyfriend René, architect Jeffrey quits his flatshare and takes an apartment in René’s building under the pretext of needing his own space. But with mounting evidence of a sudden departure by the previous tenant, and strange moans coming from the rooms belonging to landlady Gladys (Patti d’Arbanville), Jeffrey’s romantic entanglements are soon the least of his worries.

Though it’s plain from the start that Gladys’s slightly eccentric, mother-hen demeanour belies something much more sinister, this first full-length feature from Sam Zalutsky still manages to hold the attention throughout. Horror fans will be reminded of Rob Reiner’s Misery, with its protagonist powerless in the face of domestic imprisonment and increasingly unhinged female villain. But chiefly thanks to d’Arbanville’s reined-in performance, a sense of dread is allowed to build gradually and never boils over into Hollywood-style histrionics. Indeed, the film is perhaps most effective as a commentary on how isolating the gay experience can be – and, in turn, how vulnerable that can leave us.

25 Cent Preview

The title refers to ‘try-before-you-buy’ booths in porn stores, for the backdrop here is the insalubrious streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Cyrus Amini’s film chronicles a night in the life of chiselled blond hustler Marcus and his African-American partner-in-crime Dot.com, its hand-held camerawork and cast of unknowns giving it a gritty, documentary-like realism.

The depiction of Marcus’s hour-to-hour existence is disarmingly matter-of-fact. One ageing but wealthy client seems to have fallen for him. A session with a married ‘straight’ man, also involving Dot.com, turns ugly. And when two girlfriends invite Marcus into their limo, one takes her pleasure while the other films the encounter. But on this particular night, personal business hijacks the professional. The brother of Marcus’s girlfriend, not caring for the company his sister is keeping, ambushes and assaults him. Then, urged on by Dot.com, Marcus is given a chance to take revenge on a hateful figure from his past – an act that threatens to undo him completely. It all adds up to a far from easy view, but the two central performances reel you in, and its final moments, satisfyingly, seem to anticipate Marcus’s salvation.

(Reviews by Scott Hughes)

And don’t forget, you can still view a rather exciting selection of stills from films showing in the festival on the QueensSpeech.com Homepage.

Enjoy!